Of Love and War
by Butterfly Conlon
Summary: Angel Haddox is assassin to her brother, ruthless leader of Midtown. Yet, she finds an ill-fated companion in her sworn enemy of Brooklyn, Spot Conlon, and on the eve of war, must choose her allegiance to her blood or to the one she loves.
1. Of Love and War

Disclaimer: I do not own the following poems below. They belong to Cocoa  
and Firefly Fairy, respectively.  
  
In times of darkness, observe what is bright  
When all seems lost, in your own right  
Discover the love, and with noble might  
Overcome troubles, and vanquish the night.  
  
Wherever blood is spilt and death ensues  
Wherever hate grows and all consumes  
Love will prosper, thrive and grow  
To banish the evil back below.  
-- From Love and War by Cocoa  
  
I watch as bombs hit the ground,  
To my left,  
To my right.  
I look around for my love,  
For he is fighting,  
In this war.  
I walk along the injured,  
But don't see him,  
And the hope inside me brightens.  
He is alive,  
And well,  
I think.  
But I am wrong,  
Deadly wrong,  
For I see him laying there right in front of me.  
I run to him,  
And touch his pale face,  
And cold lips.  
Tears fall down my cheeks,  
As I see he is no longer with me,  
And in another world without me.  
I cry for him,  
For our love,  
And for the war.  
Who ever said all is fair in love and war,  
Has never experienced love and war,  
For love and war are never fair.  
-- From Love and War by Firefly Fairy 


	2. Prologue

Disclaimer: Disney owns all pertaining to the movie Newsies. Anything else belongs to me. Rated for graphic language and violence.  
  
Note from Author: Finally going back and correcting all of my grammatical mistakes (that's why I could never be a teacher) and over all just trying to tighten things up.

OF LOVE AND WAR  
  
PROLOGUE  
  
The twilight bathed evening was not of any importance. It resembled any other of the June evenings that blended indifferently into each other. There was the perfect balance of the breathless sun setting in the bloody red sky stained with too many colors and the cold stars beginning to appear that reflected on the East still river.  
  
The only great disturbance one could have taken note of was the gunshot that ripped through the silent atmosphere, shattering the peacefulness, and the shuttering of the dock boards under the corpse that fell to them. The audible sound of the shot echoed for a few minutes before finally dying like its victim had.  
  
And as though nothing had occurred, a smoldering silence one again fell upon the nameless dock in Brooklyn, all save for the heavy breathing of the three figures that stood in a half moon around the corpse.  
  
The noise of the audible shot still ringing in their ears, they regarded the fallen cadaver that had been a Brooklyn newsboy-the way the lifeless limbs were sprawled in impossible positions and the river of deep crimson that trickled from the gaping wound in the unfortunate's head.  
  
The assassin, her arm stretched taunt and away from her, slowly lowered the smoking revolver, her steel-gray eyes sharing in the somber scheme of her countenance. The accomplice to her left shared in her solemn expression. It was only the one to her right that was displaying any emotion: his coal- black eyes a-light and his thin lips pulled into a disgusting smile.  
  
The assassin shifted her eyes from the cadaver to the boy on her right, her eyes on fire. She raised the revolver, aligning it between his eyes. "If you keep smiling like that, Nero, I'll pull this trigger and I'll have no regrets."  
  
His smile didn't falter, instead, it grew. He shook his hands in front of him as his dark eyes danced wildly. "Angel, baby, c'mon. Why ya seem as though ya at a goddamn funeral? You killed one of Spot's boys. It's not like ya just killed some civilian for Chrissakes."  
  
Her eyes only narrowed more in fury, the gun still pointed straight at his forehead. "Can it, Nero. You know on any other terms I wouldn't give a damn about killin' one of them. But we've been on terms with them. No major rumbles for more than a year. We don't kill them and they don't kill us."  
  
He inclined his head and tugged his mouth into a sneer, taking no heed to the revolver point-blank at his head. "Angel, you should know more than anyone else that Oliver don't take no shit from nobody. Especially Brooklyn." He passionately motioned to the corpse sprawled at their feet. "He was defiling Oliver's name." His eyes glittered vehemently. "Ya brother for Chrissakes! Insulting Midtown! Don't go getting' soft on me now, Haddox- -"  
  
She released a growl and stepped towards him, placing the barrel of the revolver to the flesh between his eyes. Her eyes in slits and glimmering, she cocked the trigger. "Don't you dare push me, Night. Don't you dare."  
  
A feverish silence fell between them as they regarded each other with impassioned gazes. It was Flynn Finesse, the third member of the party, who finally broke them up.  
  
"Hey, hey, hey," he fiercely cried, stepping over the corpse and placing a hand on the revolver and pulling it away from Nero Night's skull. "Knock it off, will ya? Oliver ordered us to do something and we did it. Christ, it's just a knock off. We never sat here and contemplated whether or not it was ethical to kill one of Brooklyn before. We just did it and went." His hazel eyes glimmered. "Did it and left. Left before either Spot or the bulls caught up with us."  
  
Angel Haddox and Nero Night stepped away from each other, burning malice still laced within their glares.  
  
Night's lips finally curled into a smile as he gestured towards the fallen newsie with his head. "Is ya name finally catching up wit ya or something', Angel?"  
  
Angel released a howl of hate as she wretched the revolver from Flynn's grasp and expeditiously raised it at Night, not thinking twice as she pulled the trigger. Yet Flynn had been quick, and placed his hands upon the barrel and thrust the gun upwards, causing the bullet to slice through the darkening sky, Night ducking low still.  
  
For the twain time, the echoes of a bullet rang in their ears, yet this time followed not by the falling of a body to the docks but a revolver.  
  
Nero straightened, incredulously regarding her with wide eyes. His voice was high and cracking. "What are you? Fucking crazy, Angel?"  
  
Angel observed him, her breathing labored and bared teeth clenched together. "No, Nero, no. I'm not crazy. I'm Oliver Haddox's sister. And don't you ever, ever say anything like that again. Because if you do, Flynn won't be there and I will blow your brains out."  
  
Night regarded her, hunched, his oleaginous hair and eyes just as raven glimmering in the waxing moon. Daring not to tempt Angel any further, he only straightened, and cocked an insolent brow, motioning to the corpse. "Come on. Let's dump him into the river before anyone comes. And we better do it quick because isn't someone liable to think something suspicious after hearing two guns shots? Most notably Spot Conlon?" He cast Angel a caustic glare, who returned the favor just as gratefully.  
  
"All right, guys, c'mon," Flynn instructed, falling to his haunches at the cadaver's crown. "Nero, you get his feet and I'll get his arms."  
  
His eyes sharp and features set, Nero strode to the fallen's feet, roughly rising to his feet before Flynn could to the same, causing the body to be inclined at an angle.  
  
"Nero, knock it off will ya?" Flynn hissed, rising as Night had done.  
  
"Knock what off, Finesse? You want me to cry a river over this stiff?" Nero spat, as he and Flynn stumbled over to the edge of the dock. "Ya know, you're starting to get just like Angel. What in the hell's wrong with ya? Getting all emotional--" He halted as he saw Angel stoop down in one fluid motion and retrieve the gleaming black revolver and casually point it in his direction.  
  
Flynn's features twisted into determination as he and Nero swung the lifeless body to and fro thrice before releasing it and allowing it to hit the river with a grand splash. "I'm not getting emotional. Neither is Angel. We take it seriously. You take it as though they are animals or something and need to be hunted down."  
  
Night allowed his gaze to flicker from the cadaver as it lazily began to flow downstream. "Christ, Flynn, he insulted Oliver. I don't know about you, but you don't insult Oliver Haddox and get away with it." His features twisted into a sneer as he observed Angel. "Maybe that's why I'm his right hand and you're only his sister."  
  
With a slick click, the trigger of the revolver was once more cocked. "Is three times a charm, Nero you stupid bastard, is it?"  
  
Flynn released a sigh and strode over to Angel, gently yet firmly, gripping the weapon, taking it from her grasp and sliding it in the waist of his trousers. "Jesus Christ, knock it off you guys? Ho, come on, we have got to scram now. Don't want Spot to have to use this shit, do we?" He reached into his trouser pockets, fishing out a thin vial.  
  
Casting Nero Night one more scowl, Angel Haddox turned and plucked the revolver from Flynn's trouser-waist before continuing down the dock. "Let's go."  
  
And Night and Flynn Finesse followed the assassin, as they always did in this habitual song and dance of slayings, and as the water-logged corpse of a Brooklyn newsboy drifted down the dark river that reflected the cold stars and bright moon, awaiting discovery. 


	3. Chapter One

Note from Author: Thank you for all those who reviewed, as always, they are immensely appreciated. And, by request, I give a shout out to Skittles: I would throw you a parade for your reviews, but I fancy that an update will just have to do! As always, please read, review, and enjoy--  
  
CHAPTER ONE  
  
The only objects that sat between the pair were the gleaming ebony revolver, the opened flask of gin, and the dead body.  
  
Angel Haddox allowed herself a prolonged sigh, if not a deliberate one, as her upper half grew lax, her head falling between her bent knees and her arms draping over them.  
  
Flynn Finesse, glitter-shot bottle in hand, gave her side a gentle nudge with his left hand. "Hey, why the attitude, Haddox?" he implored somewhat tipsily for it had been he who had consumed most of the near-empty bottle.  
  
She shrugged absentmindedly, raising her head slightly and twining her fingers in her flaxen hair. She tried with a passion to study nothing but the tips of her sullied boots, yet her eyes deceived her as they fell to the corpse at her feet. A shudder wrought its way down her backbone as she regarded the carelessly sprawled limbs and the congealed blood that had run from the right temple. The fallen watched her with open eyes; its mouth twisted into a queer grin-a sinister grin.  
  
Angel shook her head in disgust as she raised her right foot and quickly closed the corpse's eyes with the tip of her boot.  
  
Flynn noticed this odd behavior out of his peripheral vision and cocked his head towards her, lowering the gin bottle. "What's all this, Angel?" he asked, motioning towards the cadaver.  
  
Angel raised a brow; her gaze still transfixed upon the corpse. "What's what?" she murmured.  
  
"This!" Flynn replied darkly, touching the base of the bottle to the body's forehead.  
  
She turned her eyes towards him. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"Oh, right, Angel, you don't know," he countered through a belch. "Angel, you just killed the sonofabitch that your brother wanted dead. And, boy was he a hard sucker to get! You should be helping me down this here bottle in celebration, not me doing all the damned drinking--"  
  
Her back grew ridged as she turned on him suddenly, her steel eyes flashing. "No, Flynn, I think you've done enough drinking for the both of us. You know, you sound exactly like Nero when you're drunk. One Nero Night is enough to last me a whole lifetime."  
  
His brows knitted together in intoxicated rage. "Hey, is that an insult?"  
  
Angel released a repulsed groan. "Don't flatter yourself, Flynn. You know damned well that being related to Night is ten times worse than someone spitting on your mother's grave."  
  
Flynn pondered this as he fell back on his elbows, the rough cement of the stoop digging into the flesh. A strand of blonde hair fell carelessly across his brow. He did not care to flick it away. "I know, Angel. I shouldn't have said that."  
  
She released a grand sigh as she too fell to her elbows, the crown of her inclined head brushing his shoulder. The last time she had looked at the sky it had been a dark shade of velvety black and the cold stars had been quite prominent. Though, now, the sun was beginning to rise, and the east horizon was smattered with the faintest traces of pinks and pale yellows at the arrival of the lordly star.  
  
"All night. It took us all night, Flynn, to track him down."  
  
Flynn snorted, casting his eyes to the lifeless body. "Yeah, but usually it don't take that long. Usually we're back in Midtown by sunrise."  
  
A silence fell between the pair as they sat reclined side-by-side, viewing as the darkness faded and as the first signs of daybreak became apparent.  
  
"Flynn?" Angel said after a few moments that had seemed like hours, rupturing the silence.  
  
"Um?" he dreamily replied.  
  
"You know why we killed him, didn't you?" she asked.  
  
Flynn elicited a great yawn as he raised an arm above his head before bending it and shoving it down his shirt collar where his gnawed fingernails drove themselves into his skin, trying to soothe an itch. "I don't know, Ang. Someone who did something to make Oliver mad as hell--"  
  
"No," she said curtly, pulling herself into a sitting position. The words fell from her tongue in such a manner as though she despised to utter them. "No, Flynn. He was just a Bronx newsie, a stupid goddamn Bronx newsie who just happened to get a little ways off his turf and happen to run into my brother and look at him the wrong way." Her knees curled to her chest, she shifted her despairing gaze to Flynn who regarded her with intensity as he lay on his back. "And we don't even have any riffs with the Bronx. Ace Forrester's never done a single damned thing to Oliver and he has to go and- -" She turned her head to regard the corpse. "He just looked at Oliver the wrong way-no, he probably just looked at Oliver. Probably just looked at him and Oliver thought that he would look mighty nice with a bullet in his damn skull--" Her voice began to falter.  
  
Flynn immediately sat up, his jade eyes alive with vehemence as he placed a heavy hand on Angel's shoulder. "Angel, what in the hell is wrong with you? What in the hell are you talking about? You never went on like this before-- "  
  
She angrily wretched free of him as she raised her stormy gaze from her knees to view once more the fallen cadaver that was washed with the first brilliant streaks of daylight. "I'm not going on, Finesse, I'm not going on! I just-for these past few shootings I've been thinking. I mean, Oliver gives me my orders because somebody wronged him in some stupid fucking way and then in the darkest hours of the night, I have to go and track them down. And sometimes I don't get to them in time and they recognize me. And they plead for their lives, oh Christ, they plead. And they sob like babies--that's what they do--and here I am with a revolver pointed at their head and I have to listen to their bullshit! It never affected me like this. I didn't give a damn about shooting them when we weren't on the truce with Brooklyn and they were killing us. Then, it was a free-for-all. No guilt getting in the way. But now, I swear he's lost it. He wants me to kill people that just look at him the wrong way for Christ's sake!" She inhaled deeply, raising her eyes to the expanding sunrise. Her eyes wild, she tossed the unfinished bottle of gin at the star, seeing if she could somehow hit it. "I never even wanted to do this shit anyway! I never wanted to, goddamn him!"  
  
A heavy silence filled the air between them. Flynn released a heavy exhalation as he allowed his gaze to flicker towards the fallen Bronx newsie and back to Angel once more. "Angel, pull yourself together," he said breathlessly yet fantastically firmly. "You're an assassin. A Midtown assassin. Oliver Haddox's own private assassin. I've never seen you like this. Usually if anyone has a problem, it's me. You're usually like Nero; you keep your emotions out of it. You have to keep to that, Angel, you have to. Because if you don't--"  
  
"If I don't what?" Angel hissed, her eyes glittering with a fire. "I know I'm going to hell already. So If I don't do what, Flynn? What is it we 'don't do' anyway? We are fucking kids shooting people. Shooting kids. Am I supposed to do this for the rest of my life just because he commands me too? Can I help it if I'm developing a--" And she halted, a sudden terrible fear welling in the depths of her soul of the word she had almost uttered. She inhaled deeply and forced her unbridled emotions to be collected well enough so that Flynn would just think it a passing symptom. Her eyes narrowed and any emotion that had been displayed in them before was clouded over. "I am pulled together, Finesse."  
  
And, as though to add more evidence to her statement, she picked up the revolver that lay at her feet with a flourish, and in a passion, emptied the remaining bullets into the dead body. Even after the cadaver was through doing its sickening dance as each shot struck it, the echoes still rang in the lightening sky.  
  
Flynn turned towards Angel, his heart racing in his chest. "Jesus Christ, Angel! Do you really think I like sitting on a damn stoop in the Bronx with a cheap bottle of gin and a dead body at my feet? Do you really think I like doing this? Murdering people who I don't even know? It's my job, Angel. I told you, I am an assassin. First it was Lyner and now it's your brother. I wish I could say that I don't get my feelings involved, that I can't get my feelings involved. But sometimes the part of the soul that I have left in me leaps out at the exact wrong fucking moments and makes me sorry I shot them. Of course, I'm not as strong as the others. So some of my emotions come into it as I kill them? So, what if I have a conscience? But it's money, Angel. And protection. Life is a bitch who doesn't care and sometimes you have to do shit that you don't want to do to even stay fucking alive. Do you think--"  
  
Yet, Angel halted his remaining words, as she had risen abruptly to her feet and released a marvelous shriek at the infernal word. "And what, Flynn? I don't have a conscience? Just because you feel mercy before you so kindly blow their heads off, that makes you a fucking saint, Flynn? You're a murderer, Flynn, a good for nothing murder. Jesus Christ won't give a fuck how much you plead with him when you are dead about how you felt a little pity for them before you killed them. He'll just look at you like all the rest of the world does--a lousy, good for nothing bummer. So you have a conscience, Flynn? And I don't?" "  
  
Her voice was filled with passion and ardor, as though her immortal soul depended on the one answer that was elicited from Flynn Finesse.  
  
He looked up at her, as her eyes burned into his and her chest heaved, and simply replied, "No."  
  
The answer ripped its way throughout Angel's insides, causing alien tears to brim in her eyes, as she felt emotions. She did not feel emotions, she could not feel emotions, yet she was experiencing them in all their agonizing glory. As she stood with the revolver lax in her grasp and her cupid-bow lips quivering, she felt like an utter idiot in the eyes of Flynn.  
  
Jumbled, confused thoughts seemed to collide within her mind as she felt herself being regarded beneath his seemingly burning glare. She searched desperately for some sort of statement to respond with, yet when she finally opened her mouth she did not recall what she had said.  
  
"Go to hell, Finesse! Go to hell, you lousy, fucking murderer! Stop walking on airs. You have no fucking soul."  
  
She then turned, and stumbling off the stoop that was located under the deserted building in the Bronx, stepped over her victim, and blindly made her way home.

Angel finally reached the abandoned warehouse that her brother and his minions called home when sunlight illuminated the world and the new day had begun. She threw herself inside the main doors, distraught and disgusted, her head down and her only wish to flee up the endless flights of stairs and to the third floor and the forsaken mattress in which slumber could overtake her for the day.  
  
She fancied herself disgraceful and dirty, as though the unshed tears that were on the verge of making their journey down her cheeks were a betrayal to her brother, to Midtown-to herself. It was not the bitter sense of sorrow she was experiencing yet the excruciating irritability for allowing her emotions to interfere with her work.  
  
Her gait brisk, she thrust herself through the decrepit first floor of the warehouse and up the flight of stairs to the second floor. All the boys resided on the second floor and Angel desired with a passion that she would not happen to encounter one-especially Oliver-in the state that she was in. Alas, fate was not on her side that particular morning for just as she rounded a corner she found none other than her brother himself.  
  
She released a gasp, placing a hand to her mouth. The fright was not from the meeting of a fellow Midtowner, on the contrary, it was the fear that Angel had built up inside of her mind if one of them were to espy her on the experiencing these unfamiliar emotions.  
  
She stepped back, her steel-gray eyes waxed, as she regarded his brother. From afar, it would have seemed a radical and ludicrous notion that Oliver Haddox could instill utter fear into the hearts of others, yet a glance closer would convince one otherwise. He reeked of something that was not physical-Angel often associated it wish the smell of death after one of her slayings. She often regarded her personality the doppelganger of his, as he was of fair height with lanky, accentuated limbs. A mop of dingy brown hair always covered his sharp, malicious eyes. The searing eyes that bore down upon her now.  
  
"Angel," he said softly, his thin lips pulling themselves into a sinister smile, revealing his jagged, yellow teeth. The light danced on his eyes, producing a vacant gleam. "Since you are back, I take it that you did it?"  
  
She felt her breath bate in her throat as those eyes burned into her face; she knew that he was observing the watering in the creases of her eyes. She prepared to answer, when she saw Nero Night appear at his brother's side. His stature comically diminutive next to Oliver, he was wringing a towel between his hand and his jet-black hair was slick with water.  
  
"Haddox," Nero said in his a voice as oily as his hair, letting his eyes wanders along her body before meeting her eyes. He placed the still damp towel around his bare neck. He was a plump, stocky boy with skinned tanned quickly by the summer's sun. He stared at her with eyes that always looked tired from beneath his deeply-hooded lids. "I see you knocked the bastard off. I was afraid that you had lost your nerve there for a moment."  
  
Angel felt her face heat to a stunning shade of crimson, as she suddenly became aware of the revolver that was being loosely held in her right hand. How exquisite it would have been to aim at Nero Night's head and kill him once and for all. Alas, her bullets had been stupidly wasted on the corpse and Oliver would have her skinned alive for killing his most precious right-hand man.  
  
"Nero," she replied in a tone just as light, "go fuck yourself."  
  
Nero's eyes lost their smugness as they glittered dangerously. Though, she was in no eminent danger for this produced a sick grin on Oliver's behalf.  
  
"Well, I must say good work, sister, good work. I am only sad to say that it wasn't one of Brooklyn and one of the Bronx. They can't be depleted quickly enough, can they?" Oliver hissed. His gaze suddenly halted then upon her eyes. "Why, dear sister, are you crying?"  
  
Angel drew in a deep breath as Night's eyes shone brighter than the sun outside. She stepped backwards, flustered. "Of course not! Why in the hell would I be crying--"  
  
"I don't know, Ang," Nero sighed. "All these killings, it might be too much for your feminine ways--"  
  
Though, his words were soon murdered, for as with great fluidity, Angel had reached under her trouser leg and retrieved her back-up dagger for only dire emergencies. She then took the liberty of wearing a countenance of sheer hatred as she drew back her arm and sent the blade hurling over his head with a trained hand. The blade struck the wall behind Night just as he fell to his haunches and cocked his head wildly around.  
  
Curses bluer than a summer sky were then produced from Nero as he slowly, and shakily, raised himself to his feet. Angel made her way past him, her narrow eyes lingering on him, as she removed the blade from the wall with one sharp tug. She then kissed the blade in Night's direction, who elicited only more oaths.  
  
Though, it wasn't Night's approval she was seeking, and her gaze flickered quickly to Oliver. She was quite relieved to find that his eyes glittered with grotesque amusement-Oliver Haddox was one of claret and was quickly excited by at the prospect of bloodshed.  
  
Her eyes returned once more to Nero Night who hadn't presumably taken the warning she had uttered to him a fortnight ago to heed by the incredibly pale shade of white his flesh had taken on. He regarded her, his black eyes wide. "Angel, you are fu--"  
  
Though, Angel did not allow him time to finish as she brushed past him, whispering in his ear the parting words of, "Just be glad that my gun wasn't loaded or I wouldn't have missed, Night. That's a goddamned promise."  
  
She then quickly made her way to the second flight of stairs, flashing her unloaded weapon at any of the dressing newsies who happen to position themselves in the hallway and greet her with lewd statements. She climbed the creaky stairs in a whisper and was finally to the third floor of the warehouse, her quarters.  
  
The warehouse was a great hulking building situated on the southern side of Midtown. At one time, it had housed a factory of some sort when that area of New York had attested to a boom, though that boom had quickly faltered and the factory had closed its doors forever. It had then become a meat-storage warehouse run between two brothers, yet the one brother had cheated with the other's wife or something of that sort and in a jealous rage the forsaken brother had torched the building-while his kin and wife were having sex on the third floor.  
  
After the double homicide, the warehouse had sat desolate and decrepit, observing like a silent sentinel as a spectacularly dark wave of crime and violence swept over the area. The whitecap of that wave of violence had been none other than Oliver Haddox, who had adopted the old building as his own and converted it into one of the most fearsome areas this side of New York.  
  
Though, Angel did not find the residence the least bit fear inducing as she wearily pulled herself up the last remaining steps and finally to the third floor. The third floor of the warehouse had always tacitly belonged to her- the others knew to stay away for they knew that they would be met with her revolver if they were to step foot upon it. It was nothing special indeed, it was incredibly dusty and cobwebs laced the charred rafters. A repulsive mattress lay in a corner to the left wing, a few yards away from a smeared window that allowed shafts of light to create bars on the antediluvian floorboards.  
  
She released a great exhalation and her shoulders rounded as she wearily made her way to the mattress, before falling upon it in a grand heap. Pushing loose strands of hair off her brow, she shimmied up the right cuff of her trousers as she once more placed the glistening blade inside its rightful sheath that was wrapped about her upper calf. Exhaustion beginning to make its appearance known, she was about to fall back on the flat mattress and allow slumber to overtake her, when her hand suddenly fell to the revolver that lay beside her. With yet another sigh, she begrudgingly reloaded it with fresh bullets before sliding it under her moth eaten pillow.  
  
And then, just as morning touched the land, Angel fell back to her pillow and was immediately touched by sleep, a sleep that was quite troubling, indeed.

A gentle nudge on her torso awoke Angel Haddox. She released a groan as her features twisted involuntarily into an expression of irritability.  
  
"Angel, hey, c'mon, Angel wake up," a soft voice whispered into her ear.  
  
Alas, slumber still impaired her better judgment and with out even thinking for a second time, she had reached under the pillow and grasped her revolver, cocking the trigger and pointing it blindly at the intruder. It was only when she cracked her eyes partially opened, that they waxed to their entirety and she lowered the gun, realizing whom she had pointed the weapon at.  
  
Flynn was crouched to the right of the mattress and his features relatively calm. The beams of sun that shot through the window caused his golden features to come alive and rival him to Hyperion.  
  
Sleep was soon banished from Angel as she immediately jolted to a sitting position, her eyes wide and full lips gaping. "Oh, God, Flynn! Christ, what are you doing? I could have blown your head off!"  
  
A grin crossed over his mouth as he made himself at home on her mattress, falling next to her. "And I forgive you too, Angel Haddox."  
  
She cocked a brow as she lowered the revolver, placing in its rightful place under the pillow. "Well, I think I would have killed Nero this morning if I hadn't emptied my last shots into the stiff--" Her words immediately died as realization of the previous night and that early morning flooded her mind once more. Her eyes were full of repentance as they fell to Flynn. "Oh, Flynn, you had to get rid of the stiff all by yourself-I never meant for that to happen-"  
  
He was silent for a moment as he reached into his pocket, pulling out in a flourish a cigarette and a match. Placing the cigarette loosely between his lips, he raised a foot and struck the match on the sole of his shoe so it ignited into a blaze. He then lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, closing his deep green eyes for a moment. As he exhaled a great ring of smoke, they opened in all their cat-like wisdom. His bright hair, which was usually pulled into a queue was loose and touched his shoulders. He brushed a strand carelessly out of his eyes. "It's not like I haven't got rid of a dead body before, Angel," he responded while shaking out the match. "I mean, I did odd-jobs here and there knocking off people before I got sucked into the world of Midtown and Oliver Haddox--"  
  
"Yeah, but your not like them," Angel replied as she held out her hand for Flynn to give her a drag.  
  
A smile crossed his lips as he watched her inhale on his cigarette. "And, Angel Haddox, no matter what you say, you're not, nor will you ever be like them."  
  
Her storm-gray eyes opened wide in protest as she glowered at Flynn, yet his smile only grew broader. "No, Angel, I've known you for only the past two years but I think--I know-- you better than your own self. No matter how hard you try to act like your brother, even if you do almost succeed the majority of the times, you'll never have as much hate inside you as him."  
  
Angel observed him as he pulled his legs onto the mattress and as he fell against it, his hands behind his head and his ankles crossed. The sun highlighted his fair features and the smooth lines of his face as he closed his eyes and basked in the warmth.  
  
She released a sigh as she turned forward again, listlessly tapping the cigarette and watching as the deadened ashes fell to the decrepit floorboards below. "Well, you could have fooled them," she finally replied. "Everyone else thinks of me as an Oliver only with tits. They think me bloodthirsty." She twisted her torso suddenly and fell to the mattress on her stomach beside Flynn, her hair falling down her shoulder.  
  
Flynn lazily opened one eye and watched her as she continued. "I mean, you're the only one in the world that I can tell this kind of shit too. Anyone would else would think that I was cracking, loosing my nerve. They only know my take-no-shit attitude and my revolver and that I don't give a damn who I shoot, that you don't cross me." She halted as she lowered her gaze to the sullied pillow. "You were saying those things today, about getting your emotions involved?"  
  
"Yeah?" he inquired, his other eye cracking open.  
  
Her gaze flickered to his again. "I was thinking what you said, that I was supposed to be like Nero--like Oliver--and not get my emotions involved. You then said that I was getting them involved, though, but then, then you said I had no--" Her voice lost her as she felt the alien pit form in her stomach.  
  
Flynn rolled onto his side, his features somber, as he placed his right palm on the side of Angel's face, inclining it towards him. "Angel, I don't know what I was saying. You've always had a conscience. No matter how much Oliver's influenced you, you've always had a conscience."  
  
Angel's hazy steel eyes met his. "Then I don't want one. I want it to be like before. When I could just kill and get this insane-almost lusty-high off of it. Now, now it hurts. How do you do it, Flynn? How in the hell do you do it?"  
  
Flynn lowered his hand to his side and elicited a sigh, as he deeply pondered the question. He finally replied. "Because, Angel, I know of nothing else. I'm not that smart, I can't read or write so well and, as much as I hate to say it, killing is the only occupation that a bummer like me would be good at. I'd rather be where I am now--under Oliver's wing--than be out of his favor. I of course have emotions when I kill, and try as hard as I can they sometimes come through, but I do what I do and that is a good trade in Oliver's eyes. He uses my relentlessness just as he uses yours- others may mistake that for cold-bloodedness."  
  
Angel viewed as the sunlight played upon his sullen features, her lips quivering slightly for the second time that day. "Flynn, how in the hell can you say that about yourself? You are one of the most intelligent people I know--"  
  
He lifted his blazing eyes to hers. "Intelligent? I can't even read or write for Christ's sake--"  
  
"To hell with reading and writing!" she contradicted passionately. "Flynn, you have a mind, one of those minds that is just deep--"  
  
He snorted. "A deep mind? Where in the hell will that get me, Angel? What, I could set up a booth in the middle of a street with a fucking banner that reads _Five Cents: Get Deep Thoughts from a Newsie_?"  
  
Angel winced at his caustic words, her temper getting the best of her. "Flynn, you can be so goddamn stupid sometimes. I'm just worried that I will never get out of here. That I will always live in this shit-hole and kill people just because they looked at my brother the wrong goddamned way."  
  
There was a heated silence before Flynn shattered it with his cooling voice. "Ah, Jesus Christ, Angel, of course things won't always be like this for you. You have so much and you don't even know it."  
  
She regarded him, her eyes waxing as he continued, an amused smile dancing upon the corners of his mouth. "You know I'd ravage you in the blink of an eye right here and now if I didn't consider you like a sister, Haddox. Things will happen for you, mark my words. If not in this life, then the next."  
  
Angel was unable to hide her brilliant smile. She fell back against the pillow with him, their golden-shot hair overlapping on the cloth, as her glittering eyes regarded the ceiling before shifting to him. "Speaking of ravaging," she said after a few moments. "This is where those two were going at it like rabbits when the one loony torched the warehouse."  
  
Flynn shook his head. "You and your asinine antidotes."  
  
Angel then inclined her head so that she could observe the bright sun that filtered in through the cobweb-laced window. "Hey, Flynn, what time is it anyway?'  
  
Flynn shared in her angle of vision. "It was around three when I came up here. Was too damned tired to do anything today. Not to mention I had a wonderful hang-over from that shit gin you hawked, Haddox."  
  
"Christ," she yawned, stretching her arms over her head, "I haven't eaten a lick all day."  
  
This prompted Flynn to slowly rise to his feet, offering his hand to Angel. "Well then c'mon, Haddox, what the hell you just sitting there for?"  
  
Angel's lips were pulled back in a grin as she took his warm hand within hers and rose to hers, also. Flynn then turned, his gnawed fingers finding their way through his shock of white-blonde hair and the areas of his neck as he scratched the itch that always seemed to haunt him eternally. She followed in his footsteps, an idiotic smirk upon her lips, when she abruptly halted, a shadow falling over her countenance, causing her smile to shatter. She then turned her head, her whole body then following, as she strode over to the mattress, falling to her haunches and reaching under the pillow and revealing the revolver.  
  
She turned her hand, as the revolver glimmered prismatically in the sunlight. She was bound to this cold, ebony assassin whether she like it or not. It was though she had signed her life away in blood to always care for it. With a dejected sigh, she placed the revolver within the waist of her trousers and slowly rose, turning once more and proceeding to catch up with Flynn. 


	4. Chapter Two

Note from Author: Thank you for the reviews! They make my day!!!  
  
CHAPTER TWO  
  
The Hideaway Tavern had a reputation.  
  
Located a short walking distance from the warehouse through the shadow-laced world of Oliver Haddox's territory, the Hideaway was thought of the whore of all inns of the area--dark, dangerous, festering, and dirty. The tavern had always been a place that good folk strayed from; it had always attracted the forsaken of the surrounding areas. Yet, a few years past, its management had changed hands to a man of the namesake Terrance Sayler, just as Oliver was starting to make a name of himself. It seemed as though the shadow that consumed the area did not stray from the Hideaway, and the stinking tavern seemed to lure in more of the crowd that one would be want to find in dark alleys or long-forgotten prison cells. Sayler himself was an ex-con and fancied it to his liking that the number of murders in the surrounding area had tripled ever since he had taken charge of the Hideaway.  
  
It was now in a corner of the foul-smelling, darkened tavern that Angel Haddox and Flynn Finesse sat on a rotting hardback booth, their elbows upon the warped table and shoulders rounded. Although their attention should have been on the unappetizing platters that was situated before them, their peripheral vision was sharpened tenfold and their reflexes set to reach for their weapons at a moment's notice.  
  
Angel sat down her repulsive-excuse for silverware and straightened her back against the booth, her hand going lightly to her revolver in her trouser waist. Her eyes warily turned out as she panned the tavern that was alive with shadows, the only light that of the few flickering blazes encased in smeared glass. The fire played upon the dark, hardened faces of the characters that were situated in the bar. And although Sayler and her brother seemed to have some tacit agreement, she could not halt the shudder that wrought its way down her backbone.  
  
"Flynn," she said under her breath, as he raised his head in the process of chewing his food. "Of all the places in Midtown, why in the hell do we have to come here?"  
  
Flynn's eyes did a round of the shady room before he absentmindedly shrugged, though not being able to ward off the uneasiness that resided in the back of his mind. "Because, Ang, all the other guys from Midtown come here--"  
  
She locked gazes with him, her eyes burning. "You mean you actually have a preference to being in a room full of Oliver's boys?"  
  
Flynn nearly choked on the fatty slice of beef he had been consuming as a red stain lit up his cheeks. "I know it's a bad place, but you have your reputation and your revolver as a back-up."  
  
Angel slightly slouched in the booth as she scanned the fear-inducing patrons once more. She would have bet her life on it that save the group of Midtown boys that usually took occupation in the tavern--though were absent at the moment--the rest of the customers had probably each carried out at least one murder and handled an array of hidden weapons in the innumerable folds of their clothing. "Yeah," she murmured, "but I'd just like to eat a meal in peace without a murder taking place. Why can't there be a place like Tibby's in Midtown. You remember Tibby's, don't you, Flynn?"  
  
He nodded thoughtfully as he gagged and spit the semi-chewed food back onto his plate. "Yeah, we went there after we whacked off that one Manhattan boy. Sure as hell at least had decent food there. Christ, I don't even want to know where they got this shit from."  
  
Angel had to suppress a laugh as she regarded the slimy matter on Flynn's plate.  
  
A smile played upon the corner's of Flynn's lips as he took lead. "I mean, it looks like something that would come out of Nero's nose, not something that you would eat!"  
  
She had to press a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. He continued for a few moments more with the comparisons of the unappetizing food and that of the even more unappetizing Nero Night. It was when she had slid so far down in the booth that her brow was nearly touching the edge of the table and the first tear had made its way loose, that she couldn't contain the howls any longer. A long, loud gale of laughter made its way lazily through the bar, touching each patron's ear ever so slowly until all noise had abruptly died and every eye was upon the pair in the corner.  
  
Angel immediately sucked in a breath, her idiotic laughter suddenly being annihilated. Her gray eyes grew in size, and soon were glazed over in their usual cold demeanor as she sat erect in the booth once more. It seemed to have the opposite effect on Flynn, for his shoulders rounded and his eyes fell to his plate as he reluctantly thrust the slice of beef in question into his mouth, desperately trying not to spill his guts as he swallowed the infernal thing.  
  
Angel sat, her gaze flickering across the patron's visages, her insides still feeling the aftershock of the rapid jolt of fear. Slowly, the burning eyes were lowered from them and to the appropriate mugs of beer.  
  
They both released a sigh simultaneously as their eyes met. A message could be read between them that needn't be spoken aloud: Let's get the hell out of here. And together they rose, their hands falling to the hilts of their weapons as they left their unfinished meals. Flynn took the lead, winding his way throughout the booths shrouded in shadows, his eyes locked on the rectangle of bright light that fell through the cracks of the door. Angel followed behind him, her clammy hand gripped unnaturally hard upon the base of her revolver. She caught the eye of Terrence Sayler as she left, his leathery face cold and haunting, as he stood behind the bar counter, wiping the inside of a glass clean with a cloth.  
  
She shifted her gaze to fall only upon the back of Flynn's head, trying not to notice the panic that even she was feeling building inside her. The door drew closer, though it seemed like an endeavor that would take a lifetime just to reach the doorway. It was only when they were near to the door that Angel felt the hand reach out and plant a firm hold on her left lower hip.  
  
She immediately released a soft cry and turned, drawing her revolver in a panic-stricken manner. The cold black eyes of a repulsive looking man stared back at her. She cringed in spite of herself. She could see a lust that hadn't been fulfilled in quite sometime haunt his dark irises, along with the sense of the unspeakable crimes he had committed in all his years: murder, rape, and only God else knew what.  
  
He remained undeterred by the weapon that was thoughtlessly pointed at his skull, and only continued to stare at her with his sickening, hungry eyes.  
  
"Get your hand off her," Angel heard Flynn growl behind her, which was soon followed by the unmistakable clicking of the trigger of his revolver.  
  
Yet, she was held somewhat spellbound by those hard eyes. She wondered if Oliver would have eyes like that when he got older. If Flynn would have eyes like that--if she would have eyes like that--  
  
His grip lowered to her thigh and dug into her flesh, as he opened his mouth a released a hiss of lust not unlike the serpent trying to lure Eve. It was at this that Angel's thoughts were shattered and her mind cleared. A cold hatred clouded over her vision as her eyes narrowed into slits. "He said to get your fucking hand off me," she said in a low, detached voice as she cocked and pulled the trigger.  
  
The serpent-man did not even know what struck him. The bullet drove itself through his head and out the other side, taking along with it the liberty of splashing the surrounding area with bits of brain and bone. The man, his mouth a gap and his black eyes waxed, fell forward out of his chair. Angel stepped back as so he did not touch the tips of her boots. She looked down at him with a remorseless demeanor, not feeling any emotions whatsoever as she watched the deep red blood rush out of the wound and start to pool around his head.  
  
She stepped back as not to stain her boots.  
  
She then cast her gaze upwards, placing the weapon once more in its rightful place within the band of her trousers. She wiped the back of her palm against her forehead, unknowingly smearing blood across her brow. The slaying retained no shock value amongst the patrons whatsoever. It would have been deemed an unusual day if someone hadn't been killed.  
  
Angel felt Flynn thumb her on the shoulder, and she turned, but not without taking one last gaze at the unfeeling customers. God help her that Flynn was right. That she would escape from the dark shadows of Midtown and not spend her days as a patron of the Hideaway Tavern.  
  
Flynn pushed open the door, and the sinking, but none the less bright sun met them both. It was a relief from the darkened world of that tavern. Even though, the shadows of the Hideaway seemed to transcend to even outside. The sun and its brilliant light were seen as an intruder to Oliver Haddox's world, a world of darkness and deceit.  
  
They both stepped off the stoop to the tavern and took a soft right, their strides in unison and their swinging arms occasionally brushing. Although twilight would be approaching soon, the humidity of the smoldering summer they were experiencing was still quite apparent by the way the beads of perspiration that found their way to the flesh.  
  
They walked in silence for quite some time, before Flynn broke it. "Angel-- "  
  
Yet, she interrupted him "Flynn, I know what you're going to say. I should have never told you anything because I don't want your pity. I'm not going soft and I had no qualms whatsoever about whacking that bastard off. I didn't feel any emotions-I didn't feel anything--"  
  
There was silence on Flynn's behalf before he replied. "Angel, all I was going to ask is why in the hell is Halloran running towards us?"  
  
This revelation took Angel by surprise and she halted abruptly, only being able to elicit a bewildered, "Huh?"  
  
Through her squinted vision, she could indeed discern Hal Halloran running towards them. His gait was awkward, as he was rather heavy set and it appeared even from this distance that he was having a hell of a time running, especially under the breathless sun.  
  
She cocked her head and watched in slight amazement as Halloran approached them, his stubby arms waving about and the fat that rippled hypnotically on his body.  
  
"Well, I'll be damned," Flynn whistled under his breath, as though taken aback at Halloran performing the feat of running.  
  
She allowed her eyes to flicker slightly to Flynn before returning to Halloran. "Yeah, but why the hell do you think he's running?"  
  
Flynn only shrugged as a smirk lit up his golden features. "Don't know, but let's ask him." He cupped his hands around his mouth and incremented the loudness of his voice. "Hey, Halloran, where's the marathon at?"  
  
Halloran finally reached them, his broad shoulders hunched and his breathing coming out in great puffs. Angel was afraid that he was going to die from breathlessness before them. "Very--very funny, guys," he huffed in his comically falsetto voice, his chest heaving and his face as red and raw as the Devil's hide and dripping with perspiration.  
  
Angel crinkled her nose in disgust at the repulsive body odor that Halloran was emitting. It didn't help any more that his shirt was damp with sweat.  
  
"Trying to exercise more so that you'll win the eye of Ruby, Halloran?" Flynn chortled as he punched Halloran's shoulder.  
  
Halloran was silent, as he was doubled over, trying futilely to collect his lost breath once again. He finally drew in a large sum of air, as he stood erect. "No," he replied, his words broken, "Oliver's looking for ya."  
  
Immediately, a shadow crossed over both Angel and Flynn's features.  
  
She stepped forward, her eyes narrowed. "Halloran, what does he want?"  
  
"I, I don't know," the large newsie wheezed. "Said he was looking for you and Flynn right away. He looked pretty angry and no one else was at the warehouse so he sent me to find you. Man, am I glad I found you."  
  
Angel felt her impatience strike her temper as she drew closer to Halloran. "That's not what I asked, Halloran. I asked what in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior my brother wants." she inquired heatedly.  
  
Halloran's hazel eyes waxed as he rapidly shook his head. "I don't know, Angel, I don't know-he just seemed really angry and in that mood--"  
  
"Oh, Christ!" Angel cried, pressing a palm to her forehead. A searing pain had suddenly formed between her eyes, worse than the hangovers the effects of the cheap gin that was uncorked after an assassination had upon her. She lowered her hand and glanced at Flynn, not noticing that smears of sticky crimson blood stained her fingers.  
  
Just by reading his emerald eyes, she knew that his emotions were reciprocated of hers. They were going to have to spend another long and sleepless night tracking some newsie who had wronged Oliver. He never called upon them otherwise.  
  
She released an exhausted sigh followed by a string of fabulous oaths.  
  
"Come on, Angel," Flynn said, his jovial mood dashed.  
  
Angel wearily nodded and turned to Halloran's direction. "Thanks, Hal, you done good."  
  
Halloran opened his plump mouth, poised to reply, yet the pair had already taken off down the road at a breakneck speed in their stealth gaits despite the smoldering sun above. They were silent the rest of the sojourn to the warehouse, save for their deep breaths as they pumped their agile limbs on faster and faster. When they finally reached the haven of the Midtown newsboys, they did not partake in the luxury of halting and collecting their breath. They knew only an idiot would have kept Oliver Haddox waiting at a time like this. They knew of his explosive temper and it would have to be a bout of his rage at its worse to send Hal Halloran running for them. Someone must have wronged him in some unspeakable way. Unless--  
  
Angel felt a pit being to develop in the wells of her stomach as she followed Flynn as he dashed through the front doors and up the first flight of stairs to the second floor. Unless his notoriously fiery temper had been set off by Brooklyn.  
  
"Oh, God," she whispered under her breath. They had been thundering down the straightaway hallway of the second floor, and unbeknownst to Angel, Flynn had halted just outside the threshold to Oliver's room. This gesture caused her to slam full-force into his back, forcing him to lose his balance and nearly tumble to the floor.  
  
"Where in the hell have you been?" Oliver's unmistakably caustic voice sliced through the humidity of the warehouse. "I had to send Halloran after you, for Chrissakes."  
  
Angel and Flynn quickly rose, their eyes falling to the speaker. She was not the least bit surprised to see him seated on a rickety wooden chair and a female down on her knees in front of him, performing fellatio on him amidst her gut-wrenching sobs. It was not an unusual act, indeed. Oliver always had his steady flow of girls due to the fact that if one of the newsies he sent either Angel or Flynn to assassinate had a pretty little sister, their life would be spared if she came back to the warehouse and stayed the day in his room. Of course, many of his victims' lives had been spared because of their compliance.  
  
"We were at the Hideaway," Flynn replied, his countenance serious.  
  
The girl released a dreadful sob and fell back on her knees. "I can't do this! I can't do this!"  
  
Fluidly, Oliver drew a pistol and placed one hand atop her pate as he drew her head closer to him. Pressing the barrel to her forehead, he said in a mockingly cruel voice, "Can you do it with a bullet in your brain, you bitch?"  
  
The girl released a terror-stricken sob and cast her pleading eyes to Angel. Angel shifted her eyes away, not wanting and not able to stare into those wildly haunting eyes. The girl was soon back to her revolting task as Oliver continued, "Good little whore. Finesse, Angel, I have another task to you."  
  
Angel averted her eyes from the spider that was crawling up the crumbling wall to her brother, as she stepped forward in protest. "Again? Oliver, we just knocked the kid from the Bronx last night! I haven't slept at night for two years straight. Can't--"  
  
Yet, her words died on her tongue as she saw the murderous glint her brother's dark eyes took on. "Whine and bitch, whine and bitch, that's all you do, Angel," he growled. "You're assassins. You're my assassins. It's your goddamn duty to kill who I want when I want no ifs, ands, or buts. You're plenty well provided for the jobs you do." He stopped and caught her dangerous storm-gray eyes, a malicious smirk slithering up his lips. "Or maybe Nero's right, Ang. Maybe you are going soft. Little bastard would like to have his hand at killing-- "  
  
Oliver knew he that had proved his point by the coldness Angel's features took on and as her hand went harshly for her revolver. "Who was it?" she sibilated.  
  
He sat back in the antediluvian chair. "Spot's boys. Sons of bitches were out of their turf. Looked at me the wrong way." His voice lowered an octave. "I hate when people look at me that way." His deadly glare flickered between Angel, as she stood rigid before him, and Flynn as he leaned in the doorway. "I want them dead. Tonight."  
  
Angel cocked a brow as she regarded him defiantly. Her temper had gotten the best of her, blinding her better judgment as to argue with her brother. "Don't worry, Oliver. The job will be done."  
  
"Good," Oliver replied, placing more pressure on the barrel on the girl's forehead as she reluctantly strove to give him more pleasure from the act.  
  
Angel turned sharply on her heel and brutally brushed passed Flynn in all her infuriation, yet she was abruptly halted as she heard him say, "Say, Oliver, isn't tonight the night of that big poker party that Spot is throwing?"  
  
Her eyes waxed as she spun around, to regard Oliver in utter disbelief as he pondered this statement. "Why, yes, Flynn, I do believe it is."  
  
Angel felt the atrocious pain in the front of her skull return with a vengeance. "Christ, Oliver," she choked, unable to believe her own words, "you want us to go knock off two of Spot's boys in the middle of one of his big poker parties?"  
  
Oliver lazily cocked a brow. "I don't see why not, Angel. Party or no party. I want the job done."  
  
"But, Oliver!" she cried, her voice high. "How the hell do you expect us to get in there with out them recognizing us! I mean, we'll look too suspicious and they know what we look like! They'll know who we are. It's like going into the eye of the storm--"  
  
"Then wear disguises," Oliver off-handedly commented as the girl at his knees released a wretched sob.  
  
"Disguises?" she retorted incredulously.  
  
"Go borrow a dress from one of the whores at the brothel. Tell them I sent you," he listlessly replied. The girl had once more fallen back on her knees and was in hysterics, pleading with Oliver to allow her to stop. He simply grew disgusted with her and without second thought pulled the trigger of his pistol, sending a bullet into her skull.  
  
She fell backwards, much like Angel's victim had fallen forward an hour previously. The deep-hued blood stained her dark brown curls as it seeped out of the gaping wound in her forehead. Her pale pink dress was now stained also; it had been ripped before from a struggle with Oliver and in a manner that her breasts were exposed.  
  
Angel turned, sickened, and quickly strode out the door, brushing past Flynn. She was in the hallway as she heard him reassure Oliver that his wishes would indeed be done. She was a quarter of the way up the second flight of stairs when she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and Flynn harshly spin her around. His green eyes were glittering violently. "What the hell was that all about?" he hissed.  
  
Angel read his eyes as she felt an alien sadness was over her. Her conscience spoke on her behalf, "Oliver's lost it. Completely lost it!" she exclaimed before she turned and thundered up the remaining steps, slamming the door with a passion so that Flynn was left outside, pounding upon the beaten plank of wood and pleading for egress.  
  
Angel only flew across the third floor, the wooden floorboard protesting loudly under her weight as she halted at a warped bureau. Pulling open the top drawer with such fever that it fell to the ground, the miscellaneous trinkets spilling to the floor from the shock, she fell to her haunches, sifting through them until she found the rosary. Clutching the sacred object within an impossibly tight grasp, she fell to her forsaken mattress and closed her eyes tight.  
  
Angel Haddox prayed for her soul. Perhaps she knew that when she died she would be sentenced to a lifetime in Hell, yet she still prayed to the Lord for her immortal soul.


	5. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE  
  
The sun had retired making way for a clear, breathless night. A still humidity, a residue of the smoldering morning, combined with the light zephyrs that danced across the sky, producing an ethereal feeling. One such zephyr breezed down low, slithering between Angel Haddox's legs, causing her multitude of skirts to rise above her head and reveal the revolver pinned down by the black garter on her right upper-thigh.  
  
She released a wrathful sibilation as she tried in vain to push the skirts to their rightful place. This action elicited a quiet, low laugh from Flynn as he strode next to her, his arms swinging carelessly at his side. Holding the great heaps of garments still with stiff arms, she cast him a sharp glare. "Do you find something in this amusing?"  
  
He only shook his head as he trained his eyes forward once more. "Nothin'- it's just that with that dress on, Haddox, you almost look like a lady."  
  
She released a disgusted noise, fussing with the skirts as though she was about to tear them down the seams. "Wow, Flynn, you're such a comedian. It wasn't my idea to wear these goddamn mother-whoring cloths. It was all Oliver's idea."  
  
Flynn gathered saliva in his mouth with the accompanying noise before spiting on the cobblestones. "And it was actually a good one, Angel. Better to show up dressed as a whore than dressed like one of the boys. It'll make the plan go more smoothly."  
  
Angel cast him a dark, insolent stare. "Thanks for the flattery, Flynn."  
  
He halted, stopping her abruptly by placing a constrictive grasp on her upper arm. His green eyes glittered with supreme seriousness. "I'm not joking, Haddox. Do you understand where we are going? What we are doing? We're going into the hornets' nest and are gonna kill two of their good old boys right under their noses. Do you understand what will happen if we fuck this up?"  
  
She stood silent and in a somewhat state of awe of Flynn Finesse. It was no wonder that her brother treasured his trade so much. Flynn carried out what he was commanded of without a second notion.  
  
She slowly nodded in agreement. "I understand but it doesn't mean that I agree."  
  
His eyes shone like cold shards of glass. "You're an assassin, Angel, you don't get that choice."  
  
Flynn then strode off, his steps far apart. Angel dashed to catch him, finally matching his strides. "Like you don't give a damn! Wasn't it you just this afternoon that was saying that you get your emotions into it?"  
  
His visage flushed and he looked somewhat pained, as though she had touched an exposed nerve. "So I was, Angel. So what are you going to do about it?"  
  
A light breeze filtered through the air once more, causing her skirts and loose strands of hair to flutter about. "You can't agree with him, though. I agreed with him when we weren't on the truce. Then I got something out of it. Then at least got some sort of satisfaction. But now--it's not that I'm losing my touch, but I'm worried about my life. You know as well as I that this truce is a crock of bullshit. At least Conlon is holding up his side of the deal. But Oliver--kill them just because they glanced at him the wrong way? He's going to get us all killed in the end."  
  
There was a deep, thoughtful silence between them, the only sound that filled their ears the slight howl of the wind. Flynn slowly turned his head from some structure in the dark distance to Angel, her eyes unusually piercing under the charcoal the whores had smudged around them. A dim smile lit up his tired features. "Haddox, you think too damn much. How you ever got into this business is beyond me. Don't go thinking on me now. We have to do what we came here to do because Oliver told us too, no ifs, ands, or buts." He made a motion with his head. "The lodging house is just up ahead there. You have to be on your guard. And you have to remember the plan. You remember the plan don't you?"  
  
Although Angel shook her head in compliance, Flynn took the liberty of discussing it once more. Though, she did not take heed. She was too busy squinting her eyes, trying to discern the infamous Brooklyn lodging house throughout the shroud of darkness. Although it was not visible to her eyes, just the notion of it was cause enough to feel as though a tornado were ripping apart her innards. She of course had been under the looming shadow of the structure as the sun was setting many times before, her only company Flynn, Nero, and the piercing sound of a bullet as her latest victim fell lifeless to the ground. Yet, she had never stepped foot inside of it. It chilled her blood to even think of what would occur if she and Flynn would be recognized, especially since they both had their revolvers on hand. She fancied that Conlon would have no qualms of ending their lives right there and then in front of all his intoxicated newsies.  
  
"Haddox, you still with me?"  
  
Flynn shattered her thoughts. She quickly turned her head to find his intense eyes upon her and his hands cupped over his mouth, lighting a cigarette. She listlessly nodded her head, her gaze flickering once more to the direction of the lodging house and returning to Flynn. He tossed the match to the ground and inhaled on the cigarette, his glance observing her, as though waiting for a reply.  
  
And for the first time, in a long time, Angel Haddox felt real fear. It manifested itself as a cold shroud covering her heart. Her hand unwittingly dropped to her side and felt for the revolver through the thick skirts. She damned herself for feeling this alien emotion, willing herself to feel the nothingness she had felt previously that day as she had placed a bullet in the head of the man at The Hideaway.  
  
Her eyes fell to Flynn's and she wished to tell him that Oliver had finally gone insane and that they were going to end with their brains blown out rather than those they were to target. Yet, Flynn's green eyes looked all too cool as he exhaled and the smoke swirled from his mouth and disappeared into the clear night. He would not give an ear to any of her sniveling. This would only give him cause to tell Oliver that she truly had lost her nerve, that she was of no assistance to him and now the only profession she could succeed at was that of a whore.  
  
So, instead, she betrayed her quaking heart and cocked an insolent brow, plucking the smoking cigarette from her accomplice's lips and placing it between hers, deeply inhaling.  
  
"Well, what are you waiting for, Finesse? Let's go."  
  
The plan had flowed from Flynn's silver tongue as though it would be remarkably easy.  
  
He had taken Oliver's offer in Angel's borrowing of a dress from the whores at the brothel that the former regularly attended. Angel had been guided through the process of dressing to lure men by Oliver's favorite little tart, Dominiquette, as she had restlessly twirled her loaded weapon upon her index finger. She had been suited into a fantastically constrictive corset, over which a blood-red dress had been placed. And through much fussing, her flaxen hair had been brushed out and her features accented with deep cosmetics. After Dominiquette had finished, Angel did not trust herself to regard her appearance in the full-length looking glass, and instead flipped up her skirt and safely tucked the revolver within her garter.  
  
Flynn had then met her outside the brothel with his bright hair tucked under a cap that was pulled low over his brow. Angel had darkly reckoned that she resembled a scarlet-woman on the arm of her customer, yet Flynn had merely brushed her off and relayed her the closure of the scheme as they traveled to Brooklyn.  
  
Angel now stood, the butt of cigarette quivering slightly between her lips as she regarded the Brooklyn Newsboys Lodging House. She and Flynn were still situated within a patch of shadows, undetectable to anyone in the lodging house.  
  
He pulled on her elbow, bringing his mouth close to her ear, as her eyes stayed fixated to the quarters of her brother's arch nemesis. "You can't forget the plan, Angel, you must remember it," he said heatedly, his breath hot within her ear canal. "Remember, you'll go in before me. After a few minutes, I'll go in. Remember, you don't know me. If you see me, glance away. We can't have any suspicions drawn to us. Look for both of them. Once you find them, do everything in your power to get them outside. They'll most likely be taking back drinks and will be drunk, so it may be easy. But don't take any yourself. You have to have your wits about you. Once you get them outside, lure them a few hundred yards away from the lodging house, preferably on the pier so we can just dump the bodies in the river. I'll be watching you, so don't watch for me. I'll come and join you. Then we knock them off and get out of here. We can't take no chances. None at all."  
  
When she did not reply, he hissed roughly in her ear, "Do you have your gun?"  
  
Angel's reverie was broken as she blinked, feeling his warm breath upon her cheek. She pulled away from his grasp, her steel eyes finding his. "Don't I always?"  
  
Flynn elicited a sigh, gripping her shoulder slightly. "Good, Angel. I hope you understand what your brother has us getting into. How goddamn serious this is. If you slip up and give them a clue who you are, they'll kill you without a second thought."  
  
Angel felt a superb shutter wrought its way down her spine as she glanced at the lodging house.  
  
"Just stick to what I told you, Haddox, and you'll be fine. If you get asked who you are, lie through your teeth and make up some bullshit story. Say nothing about Midtown and nothing about me." He released his hold on her. "And no matter what you do, stay away from Spot Conlon. Even though you may fool his boys, you won't be able to fool him."  
  
Flynn lowered his spread palms to her lower back and gave Angel a hearty shove, sending her, disoriented, out of the shadows and in full sight of those around. She doubled over, yet caught her balance in time from tumbling to the ground.  
  
"Good luck, Angel of Death!" she heard Flynn hiss behind her. She raised herself, brushing tangles of hair out of her face, and turned over her shoulder to regard him with narrowed eyes. Yet, the amusement drained from Flynn's features and his eyes flashed as he brutally mouthed to her, Don't look at me!  
  
His reaction took her aback, and she quickly trained her head forward once more, slowly striding ahead. Flynn Finesse was soon all but a whisper of memory as she beheld with fear and wonder the site before her. In the daylight, the lodging house could be mistaken for an ordinary, antediluvian eyesore, what with the three stories that appeared miraculous that they did not collapse upon one another, the warp the unhappy porch had taken on over time, and the chipped stenciling in black paint that proclaimed Brooklyn Newsboys Lodging House. Yet, at night and armed with the knowledge that the infamous Spot Conlon and his band of newsies resided here, one could not but help have their breath taken away.  
  
The structure resembled a living entity itself, presenting all the fear and passion as its leader did. Bright light streamed from the spider-wed laced windows, illuminating the nearby night sky. Boisterous, audible racket resounded outside over the minute sounds of what sounded like that of a pitiful, makeshift band: harmonica, fiddle, and clicker. She watched as the silhouettes of figures mulled about from window to window, each one presumably carting either a bottle, flask, or cup filled to the brim with alcohol. Many littered the porch or the surrounding areas. As she made her way to the porch steps, her eyes darted about, taking in the couples that unabashedly relished in the throes of passion. There were those few that had initiated their own private poker games, undeterred by the intoxicated laughter and screams of pleasure that pierced the air.  
  
As she climbed the steps, her uneasiness forgotten for a moment as she watched a blonde Brooklyn newsie flip the skirt of his inebriated companion over her head, she suddenly felt a clammy hand take a strong clutch on her left ankle. Involuntarily, she released a sharp noise and roughly flicked her foot in attempt to free her captive ankle. Though, the grip only became harder. She cast her stormy gaze down to see a newsie lounging on the steps on his back. He was obviously drunk, for in his other hand he held a wobbling bottle of rum. To further back her hypothesis, his green eyes never quite focused on one point, and the tip of his nose was as bright red as his thatch of hair.  
  
On impulse, Angel's hand reached to her waist prepared to grab her revolver and end his life then and there. Yet, as she realized that she was not wearing trousers and to access her gun she would have to raise her skirt, reality donned upon her. If she were to kill him, suspicions would be drawn to her and Flynn's whole plan would be shot to hell, perhaps along with their lives.  
  
So, instead she rearranged her expression into one of supreme mortal hate and roughly shook her foot. "Get your hand off my foot, now," she spat.  
  
Though, this did not have the desired effect upon the newsie, for he only rolled to his stomach, his grin and eyes growing wider, as his grip became firmer.  
  
"You're not going to agree, are you?" she sighed.  
  
He idiotically shook his head, and now pulled down on her ankle, as though she would allow him the liberty of flipping her skirt over her head as their exhibitionist neighbors had done so.  
  
In response, Angel brought her free foot back before connecting it with the newsie's face and smashing his nose with Dominiquette's borrowed heels. He released an agonizing howl of pain as he immediately emancipated her ankle, bringing both hands to the bloody mess and curling into a fetal position.  
  
This action caused quite a few pairs of eyes to be directed towards her, and Angel felt a glimmer of coldness slide down her backbone. Tilting her angle of vision down, she quickly passed from the porch and through the threshold, now entering the lodging house. To her left, she saw the room that was the center of commotion, the parlor most likely. A slew of newsies was huddled in a circle in one corner, their eyes wide and cheers loud. It was most likely the table where the official game of poker was partaking in. A roaring shout arose from the boys, causing the girls that stood near them to appear more sullen for they most likely wished to have their newsie in a dark corner rather than be engrossed by a silly poker game.  
  
In an adjacent corner was where the measly band played, amateurs who were intoxicated newsies performing a dismal hidden-talent. To the band's right was situated the barrels of alcohol. One fellow was on his back under the knob of one of the barrels, with the booze flowing into his mouth while the nearby crowd whistled and cheered him on.  
  
Past the couples that were entwined around each other and straight ahead of Angel was a flight of stairs of course littered with glitter-shot bottles of beer and more garments flipped over heads.  
  
As Angel stood within the doorway--partygoers sifting past her--her reason for attendance was almost oblivious to her. It was only when she saw the undeniable figure of Flynn slip through the doorway, his face and shock of bright hair undetectable by his cap that she realized that she was here on a mission. Her eyes lingered on Flynn, and he briefly met them before he disappeared behind a laughing crowd that was exiting the lodging house.  
  
She shook her head and twined a set of fingers through her hair. She had been sent here by her brother; to the residence of the one he hated most on the face of the earth, to slay two of his newsies. The idiocy in the whole notion sprung a slight laugh from her lips. She raised her eyes and panned the room, finding a morbid sense of amusement that here she was, native of Midtown and sister to Oliver Haddox, in the heart of Spot Conlon's territory, surrounded by his own.  
  
Truce or no truce, she knew, they would have no problems whatsoever with pointing her own murderous revolver at her temple and blowing her brains out.  
  
As she tried to clear her mind, to think of the descriptions of the two that Flynn had told her, Angel felt a hand snake around her from behind before resting on her lower torso. She could feel whomever it was pressing against her back, his hot breath invading her ear. "Hey, baby, I'm broke so tell me now if you charge any rates."  
  
He pressed Angel closer to him, as her countenance twisted into repulsion. Dominiquette's mission sure the hell had been attained: the general populous now rendered Angel Haddox a whore. For the second time that night, Angel had to will herself not to reach for her gun. Instead, she drew in a deep breath, and turned around. Alas, the expression she deemed sultry that had plastered her face now turned into one of complete and utter shock. It was the face, the newsie's face that left her breathless. A hideous scar ran from his left lower cheek diagonally across the bridge of his nose before ending in the middle of his brow above the right eye.  
  
Flynn's words from the sojourn to Brooklyn earlier streamed through her brain. On one of Conlon's boys that she was to assassinate, Oliver had claimed that he had a large scar adorning his face. Her eyes traced the path of the scar over and over, as she deemed this stroke of fate too good be true. Yet, there it was, in all its wretchedness. Perhaps if she could seduce him and his companion in time she and Flynn would be back to Midtown by sunrise.  
  
The thought purposed a smile to her lips as she gazed into his watery blue eyes. One of her hands found its way to his muscular chest, the other the right side of his face as she traced the scar with her thumb. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of charging you anything." Her voice dropped an octave. "It would be my pleasure."  
  
The scar was raised as he pulled his lips back in a drunken smile, his hands unabashedly roaming her body. "Good. Charley Cicatrice has yet to pay for a slut yet."  
  
It was when Cicatrice's hand passed over the bump on her right thigh that was the revolver, that Angel felt a surge of hatred build up inside of her. And to think that she had had reservations of assassinating the two that had looked at her brother the wrong way. It would give her nothing but the utmost pleasure to watch a bullet lodge itself in his head.  
  
A forced coy smile crossed her lips. "Well I wouldn't want to be the one to break that record, now would I?"  
  
His eyes were vacant as he regarded her. "Hey, have some booze," he said, forcing the cup at her so that the alcohol splashed upon her exposed flesh in the low-cut dress. Angel involuntarily reeled back in disgust as Cicatrice bent and pressed his tongue to her skin, licking away the drink. During this motion, her hand went up her skirt and firmly held the base of the revolver, poised to skip the step of luring him outside before killing him. Yet, before she could reveal the weapon, Cicatrice had straightened and turned over his shoulder, calling to an acquaintance.  
  
Angel took these brief moments to bottle her rage and reluctantly release the hilt, allowing her arms to fall lax to her sides.  
  
"Hey, Flick, get over here!" Cicatrice bellowed over the audible noise, motioning with his hand.  
  
Angel was taken aback once more to find the newsie that had joined them was nonetheless the one whom had grasped her ankle as she had tried to enter the lodging house. He approached them and stood next to Cicatrice, obviously disoriented and his nose shattered, the fresh blood that was not congealed catching the light.  
  
"Heya, Charley," Flick replied, his voice cracking and weary, his gaze still unfocused.  
  
"Hey, Flick," Cicatrice implored, lowering his head somewhat towards Flick's, "what the hell happened to your face?"  
  
Flick shook his head in the negative, his green eyes slightly lolling around in his head. "I don't know." His eyes suddenly waxed. "Hey, maybe it was Oliver sent one of his guys on me."  
  
Cicatrice shared in his friend's expression as Angel felt a pit manifest itself within her stomach. So these were the two that had wronged Oliver, had only glanced at him the wrong way. They matched the descriptions that Flynn had informed her of immaculately, and here one of them had mentioned Oliver's namesake. They were standing before her now, breathing and drunk, yet she could only picture them lying sprawled and lifeless on the docks under the full moon, with deep crimson blood trickling from the quarter- sized wounds that would be inflicted to their heads.  
  
She winced as she regarded them. Though they were Brooklyn, though she had been learned and conditioned to hate and despise them beyond all else, she could not but feel a stab of an undetectable emotion upon her heart, watching them so stupidly and drunkenly debate how one had obtained his broken nose.  
  
Angel's hand slipped down to her leg and grasped the revolver through her skirts. And that damned word slipped into her mind again: conscience. At that delirious moment, she was in her right mind to turn from the pair and exit more than the lodging house but that of Angel Haddox and the dark and tormented world that was her life as she knew it. Yet, that foolish dream was shattered as she turned her eyes up and over the shoulders of the condemned, she espied Flynn skulking against the back wall. Even though a shadow shrouded his face, she still knew that his jade eyes were burning into her, telling her that if she would wish to finally lose her nerve, not to do it in the headquarters of goddamn Brooklyn and Spot Conlon.  
  
So, she lowered her eyes and though she felt she could disgorge her guts at their feet, she forced a smile upon her lips and pulled Cicatrice close, whispering illicit nothings into his ear as she could feel the arousal burn off him like fire.  
  
She did not make eye contact with Flynn as she led the two out the door, morbidly as though leading them to their death. She knew he was still positioned near the door, though she need not look at him. Once she had left, he would follow her in the same manner of a shadow.  
  
The night air was refreshingly cool and cold stars prominent in the black sky above. Angel carefully stepped over those that were entwined around each other on the stairs, the revolver feeling strikingly heavy against her upper leg. She inhaled in the cool air, desperately trying to sustain herself from ripping into twain.  
  
Angel turned over her shoulder, an eyebrow cocked as a breeze fluttered her skirts and strands of hair, observing the pair as they stumbled off the porch and to the sidewalk. "I hope you two aren't this slow at everything you do!" she called, her voice deceivingly smoky.  
  
In response, Cicatrice pushed Flick forward, raising his chin in defiance. "You just wait!" he slurred. "Hey, Flick, hurry the hell up. We don't want to keep her waiting!"  
  
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying," Flick protested on his behalf.  
  
As Flynn had ordered, Angel delivered the pair to the pier where nearly all their Brooklyn assassinations were carried out. The ebony water lapped rhythmically against the pier, acting as though a companion looking glass to the sky above as it reflected the waxing moon and brilliant stars. As though it was hungry, waiting impatiently for the cadavers that would soon be pushed into it.  
  
Flick was stumbling about in a circle, though Cicatrice had his eyes trained upon Angel, burning with raw lust. He approached her as she stood near the edge of the dock, an animal grin upon his face, twisting his repulsive scar. He closed the distance between them and pressed his body against hers, his breath reeking of volumes of alcohol that harshly invaded her nostrils. His hands made themselves free to explore all crevices of her body as he whispered huskily in her ear, "Wanted to be away from the crowd, eh?"  
  
Angel felt a shutter work through her as she closed her eyes impossibly tight, awaiting now the arrival of her accomplice. Flynn made his appearance known a few moments later as Flick inquired in a scratchy voice, "Hey, who are you?"  
  
Her eyes opened and Cicatrice backed away from her, turning over his shoulder to observe Flynn. Her breath bated in her throat as she took in Flynn's strong presence: his cap askew revealing a thatch of his bright hair that gleamed in the moonlight, his green eyes set in hate, and his revolver that was pointed point blank at Cicatrice's head. She never had noticed the murderous gleam in his eye before; perhaps she had been so blinded by the power she felt of wielding a weapon, about to take a life. It chilled her to the bone.  
  
"Hey, who in the hell are you?" Cicatrice growled, his fists balling at his sides.  
  
Flynn only ignored the question as he turned to Angel. "I thought I told you not to look at me."  
  
"Forgive me, your majesty," she retorted as acidly as she could, trying to cover the shakiness of her voice as she slowly reached under her skirt and drew her revolver.  
  
Flynn's eyes were on fire as he glared back at Angel, yet he only motioned with his head to Flick. "You take him, I'll take Scar-boy, and then we get the hell out of here."  
  
Realization finally seemed to seep into Cicatrice for his jaw dropped. "Hey, just what do you think your doing, now?"  
  
Flynn cocked his head somewhat in the manner of a bird, his eyes glimmering with amusement. "Why, killing you, of course."  
  
Angel felt the stunning pain begin to rage in between her eyes once more as she watched Flick as he blanched in his skin, realizing the barrel pointed at his brow was not just for show.  
  
"On the count of three we do it." The gun began to quiver furiously in her grasp as she regarded Flick's green eyes widen in mortal terror.  
  
"One--"  
  
Flynn's trigger clicked as he cocked it.  
  
"Two--"  
  
She took his lead, the click filling her ears tenfold as she watched the utter atrocity before her that was human being urinate in his trousers, his stark eyes unwavering from the gaping black hole of the barrel before him.  
  
"Three--"  
  
An audible, singular gunshot ruptured the still air, followed by the collapsing of a lifeless body to the docks. Angel still remained transfixed to Flick, as his saucer-like eyes drifted from her and to the heap on the dock that had been Charley Cicatrice. He released a whimper, taking in the heinous bullet hole that now adored the corpse's forehead; a perfect shot that showed the skill of a practiced assassin. As his eyes drew back to Angel's, his wild sobs pierced the air.  
  
Flynn's delirious shouts echoed over the Brooklynite's hysterics. "What in the blue fuck do you think you are doing, Angel? Pull the fucking trigger!"  
  
Yet, for the life of her, Angel Haddox could not will herself to pull the trigger of her revolver. She could only hold her arms out in front of her, the weapon still pointed at Flick's head, yet they were quaking so that the bullet would miss its prime target of the brain. "I can't do it, Flynn, I can't do it!"  
  
"What the hell you mean you can't do it?" he replied his raging infuriation contained by the utter surprise he felt at her inability to pull the trigger.  
  
Angel could not convert the overpowering, foreign emotions that consumed her into words for Flynn's comprehension. It was the part of her she had always yearned for yet never truly wanted for it would destroy all she had ever built: a conscience. She regarded the hysterical newsie in front of her as a human being and not as an animal. It made her ill to believe that she thought such ludicrous notions now.  
  
To add insult to the wound that had been inflicted upon Flynn's skillful plan, a shout rang out from the direction of the lodging house, inquiring what that sound had been from a moment ago.  
  
Flynn spied the silhouettes in the distance, and dashed over to Angel's side. "Pull the trigger!" he bellowed.  
  
And then Angel broke. Her psyche with its two raging opinions had ripped itself in half and had drained her of all reason. "No!" she cried, her grip becoming lax and the revolver falling from her grasp as she sunk to her haunches in feeling like a complete and utter miserable failure. Alas, before her weapon had even struck the ground, Flynn expeditiously drew his revolver and shot Flick point blank in the head, ending his bone chilling sobs.  
  
"Angel, get up!" he cried, his voice cracking. "Angel, you have to get up, someone's coming!"  
  
And Angel Haddox rose blindly to her feet, and ran as though the Devil were on her heels, the overwhelming emotions finally overcoming her. She hadn't taken but a few strides when she felt herself being harshly halted, her arms gathered painfully tight behind her back, and the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of her skull.  
  
She had been caught. Her thoughts went to her brother, went to Oliver, as she bitterly recalled her own words of how he was going to get them all killed in the end. How ironic it was: she had witnessed the faces of her victims in their last moments, wondered what had streamed through their heads.  
  
How ironic indeed. She could not draw upon a single thing but the immortal terror she felt that her bloody trade had finally caught up with her. Her trivial prayers would not do anything to save her soul now.


	6. Chapter Four

Note from Author: Thank you to those that reviewed! :;Distributes chocolate- covered newsies:: Now, please read, review, and enjoy--  
  
CHAPTER FOUR  
  
Angel's breath was purloined from her by means of a wheeze, as the chilly barrel pushed her flaxen hair away to reach her scalp, and as gnawed fingernails dug themselves roughly into her forearms. Her knees buckled from under her, yet the firm grasp held her erect.  
  
She felt a nose touch the tip of her ear, and hot breath fill her hearing canal. "Angel, it's me."  
  
The sandy voice was recognized at once as none other than Flynn Finesse's and she released a low sob, bending her knees as much as his firm grip on her would allow. Her head sank forward, the barrel no longer pressed against it. "Oh, Flynn, it's you. It's you."  
  
He raised her to her feet with a sharp jolt, turning her towards him sharply. His eyes caught the moonlight, glittering vehemently. He still had not lowered the weapon.  
  
Angel tilted her engorged eyes to the black hole that was the barrel in front of her. She felt the same sense of grim irony. Is this how the late Flick of Brooklyn had felt just a few moments prior? Her eyes locked to Flynn's. "Flynn, put that thing down will you?" she asked in a low quivering voice, almost on the edge of hysterical laughter out of sheer wreckage of nerves. He still did not lower the revolver. "Flynn, I don't know what happened! I don't know what came over me-don't know why I couldn't do it! Oh, God, Flynn, please!"  
  
She released a low sound of relief as he lowered the weapon. Yet, it was a jagged and painful exhalation as his eyes shone with repulsion. He cocked a brow as his strong hands emancipated her and tucked his revolver within the bands of his trousers. "Have you taken to bartering for your life like your victims, Angel?" he asked, his voice affecting her like a dagger to the heart.  
  
She stepped back, regarding him, astonished, as he fell to his haunches and rolled the corpse of the fallen Charley Cicatrice on its stomach. He studied with satisfaction the gun-wound that was in the middle of the forehead; his spectacular aim was something he prided himself greatly in. His gaze flickered upward, and he did a double take on the miserable wretch that was garbed in Angel Haddox's flesh. She stared at him, her skin as pale as the waxing moon above, save for the drops of splattered blood courtesy of the corpses that sullied it here and there. She was slacked-jawed and wide-eyed, the deep charcoal that the whore had lined her eyes with smeared due to damned tears. And in the process of retrieving her murderous weapon, her skirt had entangled itself in the garter, showing the sheathed blade she also carried. He snorted and rose again, releasing Cicatrice's cold, lifeless arm from his clutch.  
  
"If you weren't going to shoot them, Angel, were you going to dismember them with your blade there afterwards?" Flynn motioned to the blade, feeling a twinge in his heart as she winced at his caustic words. Yet, he could not keep the bitterness out of his statements. When they did not slay together it was always she that committed the murders, fearless and high with the lust at the grisly acts she committed. It almost broke his heart in two to see her like this, a great mess, unable to recognize who she was or why she had reacted as she had.  
  
"Goddamn you, Flynn," she whispered breathlessly, stepping back from him.  
  
Flynn closed his eyes tightly and ran his hands through his hair in an act that knocked his cap to the ground. When he opened them, he found her staring unbelievingly at the cadaver of the redhead, resembling some fragile thing that was want to crack and shatter into a million shards at a moment's notice.  
  
Her eyes shifted to his. "What are we going to do now?" she inquired in a low voice.  
  
He sighed deeply, casting a gaze in the direction of the lodging house over his shoulder. The silhouettes he had seen must have been a false alarm. But there was no way in hell he was about to take his good old time arranging a proper burial complete with priest and blessing for the two he had slain. He returned his eyes to Angel. "I'm going to dump these two into the river and you're going to go back to the lodging house--"  
  
Her cupid-bowed lips fell open. "Go back to the lodging house?" she cried incredulously.  
  
His glare in her direction grew as he struggled to control his rising temper. "Yes, since you haven't blown either of their brains out you are sinless and innocent and in turn can return to the party of your brother's nemesis." His sharp words had made their purpose known to her. "Go there and stay until I come back. Hopefully it won't be too long."  
  
Angel cast a glance at the fallen once more, a shutter on the heels on nausea ripping through her. She turned, avoiding Flynn's burning stare, as she made her way once again to the Brooklyn lodging house, strolling as though in a dream. Flynn's acid voice halted her. "Do clean yourself up before you go in there. What's Conlon going to think when you show up with blood staining you? He'll kill you without second thought."  
  
She turned slowly to find that Flynn had begun his habitual duties of preparing to feed the bodies to the hungry river. She then looked away, fighting wildly to suppress a sob, as she approached the lodging house. The hard and impenetrable façade of Oliver's hate that she had for so long relied on was beginning to crumble and crack, the tears slipping from the creases of her eyes and down her cheeks. Her clenched fingers rubbed relentlessly at her eyes, trying to rid of the infernal tears. The action only caused her vision to be blurred.  
  
"What the hell just happened?" she whispered to herself as she raised her skirt, blindly cleansing the blood off her face as Flynn had instructed her to. Was she at this moment actually Angel Haddox? No, Angel Haddox would be down at the docks with Flynn, tossing the bodies into the lapping river and celebrating in the shadows afterwards while sharing a cheap bottle of gin with her accomplice. This was not Angel Haddox, an unrecognizable sobbing wreck taking commands from Flynn Finesse and actually swallowing them.  
  
As the lodging house became closer, the drunken shouts became more audible and the glowing lights radiating from within brighter. She ran her hands through her pale hair, pressing her palms against her skull in disgust and trying to discern an answer to her insolent behavior. Alas, she could find none.  
  
Angel felt light-headedness overcome her as she slowly climbed the steps to the porch, forgetting that just shy of an hour before hand the redhead had grasped her ankle there. Those that had been merrily participating in poker games or sex had now became too intoxicated by the flowing alcohol that they were either stone-cold unconscious or prattling and giggling gleefully.  
  
She made her way past them and through the threshold, her breath shallow and erratic as she desperately brushed away the tears. Once inside the parlor, she halted and gazed about her. A lunatic notion crossed her mind a proposed a wild laugh from her lips. So, this was Brooklyn. Spot Conlon's world. Where the fearless leader and his terror-inducing newsies called home. Yet, how pathetic they all looked now. The table where the poker game had been taking place, the supposed reason for the throwing of this alcohol-drenched party, lay desolate and barren and strewn with cards. The makeshift band had long since broken up and, to Angel's slight amusement, the newsie who had been playing the clickers was passed out along with numerous others unconscious along the now-empty barrels that once contained the booze. How vulnerable the mighty could be. It paralleled her current situation all too close for comfort.  
  
She elicited a low sigh while gazing at the barrels. The sudden remembrance of her blade prompted her to fathom of slitting her own neck or other such limb to save her from the overwhelming sickness she felt at Oliver's discovery of what had happened to his most ruthless assassin.  
  
Angel struggled brutally as not to disgorge the measly meal she had consumed at the Hideaway, and contented herself with the idea of getting beautifully drunk. That way, she would not have to face her brother or that little bastard Night tonight. That dark thought could wait until the next morning, when she would tango with her brother's fiery temper and pistol with a stunning hangover.  
  
A grim smile danced on the corners of her lips at this notion, as she crossed the parlor and over to the barrels. She crouched down and tried one of the knobs, yet found that none of the sweet ambrosia ran from it. She cursed bitterly under her breath and looked around, finding most of the cups of the unconscious empty. Yet, a few feet away near the torso of a newsie deep in intoxicated slumber on his side, a bottle reflected the moonlight. Her eyes widened in delight as she fell to her hands and knees and crawled over the bodies, leaning over the newsie and grabbing the bottle. She pressed the tip to her lips and cocked her head back, allowing the liquor to flow down her dry throat and stream down her chin and onto her exposed flesh, though not nearly enough to quell her thirst. She brought the bottle down and released a belch, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.  
  
Though, the opening was soon to her lips once more.  
  
Angel then rose to her feet, the bottle firmly in her clutches, and stole across the parlor, sifting through those of the conscious that still remained. It was the shadowed set of stairs across from the entrance to the lodging house that caught her attention. It was then that an incurable fit of curiosity overwhelmed her, and she was soon slowly making her way towards them, squinting her eyes in the darkness to discern what lie above. Perhaps it was the sheer amazement of being a native of Midtown and Oliver Haddox's sister at a party being thrown by Spot Conlon himself, and the actuality of being in Brooklyn headquarters, that she carefully ascended the stairs. The ancient boards creaked under her weight as though they were being diabolically murdered, and Angel eased her weight as she climbed, a rush of lusty excitement surging through her, akin to the lusty excitement that she experienced numerous times before taking the life of the ones her brother condemned.  
  
She reached the second floor of the lodging house and stepped off of the stairs, now finding herself in a darkened hallway. Glancing to her left and right, she found the hallway darkened, with only a dim light at the end to her left. Cautiously turning over her shoulder and down the hallway, she espied not a soul, and turned towards the queer light, her steps light against the floorboards.  
  
Before reaching the termination of the hallway, she had passed a series of doors, some open and some shut, yet saw no one. The light radiated out of a small room at the end of the hall to the left. Angel pressed her back against the wall and cocked her head inside. Seeing the room deserted, she crept inside.  
  
The quarters were quite small, not more than twelve paces in each direction. An ancient bunk bed was shoved into the right corner of the wall facing away from her. The upper bunk appeared to have been hastily made by the inhabitant, yet the measly bedding of the lower bunk was strewn about, the moth-worn sheets touching the dusty floor. A warped vanity containing a cracked mirror and too-large drawers was adjacent to the bunks and a grime-coated trunk sat at the foot of them. Across from the vanity and companion to the beds was a bowed desk that sat tilted on four legs, a small kerosene lamp positioned upon it illuminating the room. To complete the furniture, a rickety chair was pushed out from the desk.  
  
Her eyes scanned the unusual grouping of possessions as she strolled listlessly around the room. It was when the fingers of her left hand were sliding across the back of the dust-laced chair as her others held the alcohol bottle to her lips, that she heard the voices.  
  
"Yeah, and what the hell is that supposed to mean, Whitie?"  
  
"Nothing, Boss, it's that do you really want to start something up if you don't know for certain if it was them?"  
  
"You speak insolence, Wilson. I know it was the work of those dirty bastards. I know it was Haddox. You don't have to be a genius to figure that one out."  
  
Angel felt her blood run cold within her veins. The voices were that of males, one of passion and the other of reason, and accompanied by heavy footsteps resonating from the hallway. She did not know what notion terrified her more: being caught by Brooklyn or the utterance of her brother's name.  
  
Her pulse raced, as did her breathing, as she turned this way and that, her eyes darting about the room, trying to find a place to conceal herself. She hastily decided upon the trunk, and threw herself behind it, the splinters of the floorboards digging into her palms and causing her to clench a growl of pain. She contorted herself against the side of the trunk, her back ridged against one of the posts of the bunk bed.  
  
Just as she had settled in her position, the thundering footsteps entered the room, stopping near the vanity.  
  
"Just listen to me," the reasonable voice pleaded from the doorway. "We've been on a truce. Do you really want to get things started up again?"  
  
Angel flinched as the male in the room brutally kicked the vanity, causing some of the cracked mirror shards to fall from where they had been set.  
  
"You can't honestly look me in the face and tell me the shit he has been pulling is part of a truce. He sends assassins after my boys for Christ's sake! I've never done that unless provoked. So look me straight in the eye, Whitie Wilson, and tell me that Midtown and Brooklyn are on a truce."  
  
The impassioned voice left the atmosphere heavy, and the second voice did not reply for sometime. In this epoch of silence, Angel moved her backbone away from the bunk post to alleviate the jarring pain it resulted in, causing the dust around her to unsettle itself.  
  
The voice in the doorway finally drew in a deep sigh. "No, but--"  
  
As she was holding her breath, willing herself not to sneeze and give her concealment away, the door slammed suddenly shut with an audible bang, causing her to jump as a bolt of fright crossed over her. As her heart raced, she heard the scraping the chair's legs against the ground as the one with the passionate voice occupied it. Though, as she released her breath, she had tragically forgotten about the dust particles, and she soon found herself uttering the noises of an oncoming sneeze. Though try as she might to prevent it, she knew she could not contain it, and her mind issued forth curses to her as her audible sternutation ruptured the air.  
  
Angel's eyes instinctively closed shut and her teeth clamped together as she awaited her inevitable discovery. The legs of the chair released a horrid noise once more, as they were scraped against the ground. She was waiting for some type of shout or exclamation, and was not prepared for the loud crash as the trunk was kicked away. Even before she could open her eyes and release a scream, the wind was knocked out of her as she was thrown against the wall; her body sprawled on the floor, and as a firm pressure was applied to her trachea.  
  
She began to wheeze and gasp pathetically as her intake of air was murdered. The heavy pressure on her throat only became more drastic.  
  
"Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my room?" the voice hissed, any trace of mercy or compassion absent.  
  
Another choke escaped her lips as light-headedness began to consume her due to the lack of air supply to the brain. The base of her head now touching the meeting place of the wall and the floor, Angel wrenched open her eyes and what she viewed before caused her blood to curdle with the utmost fear.  
  
The owner of the feverish voice had the sole of his right shoe pressed on her neck, pushing her chin up in a ridiculously painful position. Past the sullied tip of his black footwear was the unmistakable Y of a wooden slingshot, the elastic past pulled back to reveal a glimmering ebony marble positioned in between the eyes of the wielder. They glittered, cold and hard, as though alive with a blue fire. And as Angel studied his visage, it only took a matter of a moment to deem whom the possessor of those eyes was. The fair countenance that was twisted in rage, the strands of dirty blonde hair that fell in front of the blue orbs, the lips twisted into a sneer. It had been a few years since she had actually laid eyes upon him, yet she could never forget his namesake.  
  
Spot Conlon. The fearless leader of Brooklyn. The one her brother had taught his hatred of to her. And now here he stood, bent at the waist, a murderous gleam in his eyes and arms taut with a weapon that was meant to shatter her skull.  
  
He reprised his query once more, yet Angel was strangled with fear so utterly intense that no sounds could will themselves from her lips. She could only ponder if those eyes would be the last sight she saw before the fires of hell consumed her soul.  
  
In spite of her silence, he raised the tip of his shoe slightly, giving her leeway for speech. Angel took this gift by raising her head from the ground and issuing a string of coughs.  
  
"I'm only going to ask you this one last time. Who in the hell are you?" he growled, pulling further back upon the slingshot.  
  
Her steel-shaded eyes waxed as she shook her head as best possible. She was trying to form the words that jumbled themselves like a train wreck in her brain, not knowing what to parley to him. Pondering if he knew who she truly was. As the coughing fit subsided, words of Flynn entered her mind:  
  
Just stick to what I told you, Haddox, and you'll be fine. If you get asked who you are, lie through your teeth and make up some bullshit story. Say nothing about Midtown and nothing about me. And no matter what you do, stay away from Spot Conlon. Even though you may fool his boys, you won't be able to fool him.  
  
So, she lied through her teeth and made up a bullshit story. "I-I'm new to town. My cousin Flick invited me. Thought I could meet some new people. I had gone outside for a moment and when I came back, he was gone. I was looking for him."  
  
"You were looking for him behind my trunk?" he inquired, pulling back further on his weapon.  
  
Angel released a sharp noise as his heel dug further into the flesh of her throat. "I had a couple of drinks. Do you really expect me to be thinking straight?"  
  
He regarded her suspiciously for a moment, one eyebrow cocked, as she held her breath and silently prayed that he would buy her concocted tale. His features relaxed, and he reluctantly straightened, allowing the slingshot to fall lax to his side in his grasp. Though his eyes still burned and he did not alleviate his heel from her throat.  
  
"What's your name?" he brusquely implored, raising her chin with the tip of his shoe.  
  
Angel's gaze could now only stare skyward and she found it excruciating to swallow. "Are you this way with all girls?" she asked, her voice coming out broken from the sole upon her Adam's apple.  
  
His mouth twisted into a grim sneer. "You must have caught me on a bad day. And I'm careful these days. Don't know who the hell's working for who."  
  
Don't know who the hell's working for who. His words resounded in her head. If only he knew who he had under his shoe, she thought ironically.  
  
"Well, I can assure you that I am not working for anyone. And if you'll remove your damn foot from me I can continue to search for Flick."  
  
His scowl deepened. "I thought you said you were drunk."  
  
"What does it matter to you?" she hissed in an indignant voice, expertly disguising the fear and anticipation that coursed through her. It did not take much time to dispose of corpses by means of the river. Flynn would be waiting for her in the parlor, even more infuriated with her than he had been prior to her current situation. Or perhaps in his rage he had already sojourned once more to Midtown, only to fatally whisper in Oliver's ear of her traitorous ways. The notion made her violently ill. She now resorted to pleading. "Please, let me go, I have to find my cousin."  
  
His crystalline eyes searched her once more before darkening. He sharply removed his heel from the flesh of her neck, and Angel quickly drew herself into a sitting position, her back against the wall. She bent over, her forehead touching the grimy floorboards and her hair falling around her as she huskily drew in the precious air that she had been deprived of. Only when the life force had been replenished, that she raised her head to find Conlon had moved over to the warped vanity. A spread palm resting upon its surface, his head hung and he released a deep exhalation as he absentmindedly ran a hand through his hair. His eyes were closed and he wore a troubled expression.  
  
It only then donned upon Angel Haddox that she was in the quarters of the lord of the Brooklyn newsies, he himself standing before her. It took her breath away that she had not acquired a bullet in her head yet. The conversation that had occurred while she had hidden behind the trunk replayed itself in her mind as her steel eyes regarded him unblinkingly. The other that Conlon had been speaking heatedly with had inquired if he had really wanted to get things started up again.  
  
Get things started up again-Angel had not an ounce of reasoning of what that meant. She had attained the knowledge that Conlon certainly assumed that the truce between them was now and void on Oliver's side. Yet, what work that he had been referring to, she could only but guess. Ever since the battle between the two districts to rival, as Oliver liked to call it, the Armageddon that had occurred some two years ago, both sides had begrudgingly called a truce after scores on their sides had perished and both leaders sent to the House of Refuge. Brooklyn had held up their side of the bargain, yet from the time that Oliver had been released from the juvenile imprisonment, under his command she and Flynn had been stealing to Brooklyn in the night hours and slaying Spot Conlon's newsies.  
  
Angel slowly rose to her feet, careful to pull her skirts down to that her sheathed blade did not make its appearance known to the Brooklyn leader. Brushing the dust that had settled upon the vermilion dress, she made her way across the room, her eyes never leaving him. She knew the only sensible and reasonable act would have been to steal out of the door and to Flynn where she would most likely receive a tongue-lashing as they returned to Midtown while the new day began. She knew she should be scared witless of him. Midtown's hatred of Brooklyn ran deep, and the rivalry could be terminated once and for all if Brooklyn were to fall--  
  
The light caught her eye in the form of a sadistic gleam. He had now brought three of his fingers to the bridge of his nose, his brow furrowed and jaw clenched. She approached him, slowly, contemplating the ludicrous notion that reverberated in her brain. Dare she try and slay him for the glory of Midtown?  
  
Her better judgment had been shattered long before, the alcohol and ambition was now in control of her mind. She had failed Flynn earlier and did not want to fail her brother. Would it not be delectable if he were to hear the news the next morn that Spot Conlon's throat had been slashed the previous night?  
  
A feverish high coursed through Angel's veins, a thrill she experienced only while downing a bottle of booze with Flynn and their latest kill at their feet. She approached Conlon and stood only a whisper away from him, taking in gleefully that he was oblivious to her presence.  
  
She lowered her mouth slowly to his ear, staying in that position for sometime as he continued to display the signs of a fantastically agonizing headache. "Does it hurt?" she inquired in a soft voice, her hot breath filling his ear canal.  
  
Conlon jumped at this, his eyes opening wide and his side slamming into the vanity, causing it to clatter. "What in the hell are you still doing here?"  
  
She watched him, taking her time in replying. "A thought had crossed my mind." She pressed her body against him, pushing his lower back against the edge of the vanity. "You don't look like you're having any fun at your own party."  
  
His face darkened considerably as he broke out of her grip with a flourish of disgust. He strode across the room to the desk, inclining and placing his palms on the warped desk. He observed the dancing flame of the kerosene lamp, the crevices of his visage highlighted by the blaze, as he wrathfully responded. "How can I explain to you? Why would I explain? You said you were from out of town and it wouldn't concern you."  
  
Angel joined him, her steps deliberate and dark gray eyes hungry. She sat on the edge of the desk, pushing herself so she sat in the center of it, mere inches away from his face. A smile danced upon her lips like the light. "Oh, I may be from out of town, but I've heard of you." She moved her face closer to his, and he abruptly raised his head, their noses nearly touching as the crackling fire reflected on their features. "And these are not your normal traits."  
  
Conlon's eyes narrowed as he cocked his head. "And I suppose your cousin told you this?"  
  
She shrugged slightly as she brought her legs around so that they now hung over the edge of the desk, between his taunt arms. The sheath of her blade pressed against her flesh. Her blood coursed with heat. "Why did you ask who I was working for?"  
  
He pushed off the desk with an exhalation of disgust, standing erect. "Get out of my room."  
  
A smile crossed her lips as she straightened her legs, the bottoms of her heels pressing against his lower abdomen. As she thrust herself off of the desk and into a standing position, he lost his balance and fell back into the bowed chair. The chair released a howling shutter as it caught his weight. His eyes were on fire as he watched her, slouched in the seat and his legs partly a gap. Angel then lowered herself into the chair, her bent legs on either side of his. Her skirts spread outward, covering the gray slacks he wore. "What is plaguing you?"  
  
An expression of sorrow washed over his face as he shook his head, resting his brow in his hand, his elbow planted on an armrest. "I can't deal with this right now."  
  
A smug smile adorned Angel's lips as she regarded the pathetic state of the fearless leader of Brooklyn. If only her brother could view how weak their keystone was, and how liable they were to crumble. He had the heel of his palm pulling his brow upwards and his fingers intertwined within his brassy hair as she simultaneously pushed his worn-crimson suspenders off of his shoulder. She than started for the uppermost buttons of his sullied white-collar shirt, her only experience being her own garments that she had fastened and unfastened on her own being.  
  
Conlon's weight shifted in the chair, and it released another great cry, as his back sank lower. This act caused her now to be straddling his lower half, her black garters touching the material of his trousers.  
  
After Angel had emancipated the last button, she pulled the shirt open to reveal his lithe chest. As she did so, a thought, much like a fleeting flash of lightening in a storm, entered her brain. It inquired what in the blue hell she was doing.  
  
She halted in freeing his shirt from his trousers and observed him, a slight frown touching her face. His eyes were still clenched shut and his palm pressing with a passion against his brow as though to alleviate some massive aching, perhaps a pain to rival the shots that occurred between Angel's eyes intermittently. She realized then the incredulity of the situation: she, Oliver Haddox's sister, straddling Spot Conlon, the leader of Brooklyn, with the means of slicing his neck.  
  
Angel sat back, releasing her grip upon his shirt, and suddenly felt genuinely ashamed of herself. Conlon looked liable to have a breakdown of some sort, most likely aggravated by Oliver Haddox and his assassins of the night. His words entered her brain:  
  
He sends assassins after my boys for Christ's sake! I've never done that unless provoked.  
  
Even though his name elicited bitter oaths of hate from those that followed her brother, at least he had the decency to uphold a truce with his wild rival. If the slaying that she, Flynn, and Nero had committed nearly shy of a month ago was still troubling him, what was he bound to think as he found the remains of a double homicide floating waterlogged in the river the next morning?  
  
Angel cursed herself for thinking these damned thoughts. The night had been one that she wished would never have to have its name mentioned as long as she walked upon the earth. He was not going to have his life ended by her hand tonight. Allow it to end in battle with her brother.  
  
She released a low sigh, prepared to dismount the chair, when Conlon suddenly lowered his hand from obstructing his face. She only saw his crystalline eyes open, clear and cool, before his lips were pressed against hers, hungry and ravaging. Her eyes widened to their entirety and she emitted a noise of complete and utter shock as she tried to pull away sharply. Yet, his hands had found her head, circling quickly, his fingers entwined in her tangles of flaxen hair, inhibiting her from doing do. The raw passions and wants and desperations that surged through him were transferred to Angel, as she tasted the stale gin and dated nicotine that clung to his breath. These emotions terrified her to the innermost marrow--that one could experience emotions these unbridled and wild--and she could not but help think that her brother had been the main benefactor of the energy that crackled from him.  
  
He released a growl of pleasure as she allowed herself to succumb, releasing the emotions that had built up inside her, not giving a damn who was the recipient of her passion and hate, just that it could be released. Conlon raised a leg, placing it blindly upon the chair, raising her closer to him.  
  
Angel closed her eyes harder, her legs now on either side of his bent one, as her arms found their way to his neck, into his dirty blonde hair. She did not witness Spot Conlon in her feverish embrace, only a much-needed receiver of her strong emotions that had needed for so long to be emancipated. Her loathing at Nero Night, her failure of Flynn, her failure of herself, her mortal fear as what would occur to her trade was passed on to him, just as she received his intense, fiery hatred of her brother, of Midtown, and the ridiculous pressures that were placed upon him so quell this problem and halt the finding of bodies in the river at sun-up.  
  
She released herself to the electricity, just as she felt him to the same. Alas, the audible noise of the door being thrown open with a bang deterred her and he broke apart. She turned her head to see that a newsie was standing in the doorway, doubled over, his palms on his upper thighs. His large eyes fell to Conlon as he quickly regained his composure, though the words were companioned with short breath. "Spot...outside...by the dock in the river...two guys...dead...Oh Christ dead!"  
  
Angel felt Conlon's fingers expeditiously take leave from her hair. He quickly started to rise to his feet, causing her to emit a cry as she fell to the hard floorboards. Though, she did not feel the shooting pains in her lumbar area. The shade of her skin had waned, just as Conlon's had, yet for different reasons. As his oaths with the reprised word of Midtown ruptured the air, Angel could only lay paralyzed with fear.  
  
The two cadavers of those that Flynn had slain had been discovered. The blood pulsed through her veins, chilled, with a vengeance as she questioned whether Flynn had been captured or not.  
  
She glanced up and saw Conlon, his face twisted in rage, and his hands tugging furiously at his hair. He finally released a sob laced with infuriation as he violently shoved past the newsie who had herald the grim news. The latter quickly followed after Conlon, their heavy footsteps and Conlon's fulminating oaths audible from the hallway.  
  
Angel fluidly gathered herself to a standing position, dashing down the darkened hallway, suppressing the urge to hysterically scream Flynn's name to that of a whisper. As she descended the stairs, she halted midway in descent, to find that all inhabitants of the lodging house no longer remained inside. They were most likely out at the pier due to the distant shouts she heard resonating from outside.  
  
She released a cry, calling Flynn's name against her better will, as she skidded down the remainder of the stairs. Her hand on the base of the banister, she was poised to fling herself out the doorway and onto the porch, when just as she was exiting the threshold she felt a strong arm wrap itself around her waist and a hand cover her mouth, pulling her backwards as though she were a creature born of elastic.  
  
Though she tried to increment her howls, they were muffled by the powerful grip upon her mouth, silencing her. Her assailant pulled her backwards, her heels dragging in rebellion, to the doorway. Angel could now see onto the porch and the surrounding areas. She cocked her head back, her pate coming to rest against a broad chest, and she released a retrenched sob and her knees buckled from under her as she saw the hardened green eyes and shock of blonde hair falling from underneath the cap that was nonetheless Flynn Finesse.  
  
His features set in hate, Flynn's grip only became more constricting as he sidestepped out the lodging house and onto the porch, the floorboards creaking under their weight. He halted only when they were well concealed in a copse of bushes that bordered the left side of the Brooklyn structure. There, he held Angel erect, and she watched in stunned silence with Flynn's palm over her lips the scene before her.  
  
The avenue that the lodging house resided on crested into small hill some hundred yards away, halting where land met water and the docks were situated. The populace of the lodging house was now down by the docks, the bright lantern that lined the streets illuminating their minute figures in the night. There were a few that still ran down the hill and to the scene of the crime. Amongst that group, Angel could discern Spot Conlon, his white shirt flying unbuttoned behind him as he finally approached the docks.  
  
Amongst the shouts and the cries, he pushed his way to the center, coming to a halt over two bodies that lay sprawled in unnatural situations.  
  
"Don't worry," Flynn said in a low, bitter voice close to her ear. "I dumped the bodies. Some drunk bastard took a girl down there to get laid and he found them."  
  
Conlon now dropped to his knees, his gaze flickering wildly to and from the corpses. As his agonizing howls ruptured the night air, Angel closed her eyes as tight as humanly possible, turning her head so that one cheek rested upon Flynn's chest. She could not suppress the sobs that raked at her or the tears that streamed down her cheeks, dampening Flynn's hand.  
  
She could barely even manage the trek to Midtown as the assassin pulled both of them out of the bushes, disappearing from the Brooklyn Newsboys Lodging House and into the night.

As Angel Haddox and Flynn Finesse finally reached the warehouse that was residence to Midtown, night was waning and the bright sunlight was beginning to touch the sky as the eastern horizon made preparations for sunrise.  
  
Flynn entered the warehouse first, exhausted and silent. Angel waited outside, frozen, paralyzed, and sick with fear at looking upon the face of her brother. She only stood outside the façade, staring at the black revolver that she held in her flattened palms. The first rays of light reflected off of the weapon, as she absentmindedly turned it this way and that. Flynn had returned it to her on their sojourn back.  
  
She then drew a hand around the base and cocked the trigger. She raised her arm, placing the barrel to her temple and closing her eyes. Oh, how deliciously simplistic it would be to end her woeful life right her and now. Then she would not have to face Oliver's wrath, his disappointment of his greatest creation of hate could be tossed aside so carelessly.  
  
Yet, her eyes opened and she drew the revolver down, swallowing the sour bile that loomed at the back of her throat and entered the warehouse. Her sullen face was void of any expression and her soul empty as she entered the first large area on her right, the room that served as the parlor.  
  
The parlor was cavernous, yet it was dreary and dust-ridden. The singular window that sat perched high in the front wall of the warehouse served as the only allotment of light allowed in the room. The waning bars of night threw themselves through the pane of glass now. Moldy cardboard boxes and decrepit wooden chairs, some that were turned upright, littered about served as the only furniture.  
  
Angel stood sullenly in the entryway. The only other inhabitants of the room were her brother and Nero Night, the former reclining on a broken chair and the latter on a lone crate. They each had a girl on their knees before them, performing monstrous acts upon them. Though, Oliver must have grown tired with his for she lay sprawled on her back with a gun wound to her head. Night's still kneeled before him, sobbing her utter heart out.  
  
Flynn stood before them his back to Angel, as both Oliver and Night regarded him, not taking any heed to Angel.  
  
Oliver sunk lower into the chair, stretching his legs out before him and crossing his ankles upon the cadaver at his feet, using it as a kind of morbid footrest. As he smiled his disgusting smile and bared his jagged teeth, his brown eyes glittered with malevolence. "Well, did you do it, Finesse?"  
  
Angel's stomach lurched as her breath caught in her throat, waiting for him to tell of her miserable failure. Yet, she watched as his shoulders heaved in exhaustion and as he wearily replied, "Yeah. We killed them. They're dead."  
  
She uttered a gasp in pure shock at his statement. This caused Oliver and Night's eyes to be shifted to her. Her brother's eyes gleamed and his smile broadened as he regarded her standing in the threshold. The girl at Night's feet released a scream of agony and fell back, pleading for her allowance to stop. Night only called her a despicable name and balled his fist, striking her across the face.  
  
Angel entered the parlor, just as Flynn turned and brushed past her, the crevices of his fair features lines with weariness. Her gaze followed him before turning to Night. She pulled her revolver, straightening her arms before her and lining the barrel in between his eyes. Her raw nerves rivaled that of a stick of dynamite that only had to be ignited. "Do that again and I'll blow your brains out."  
  
A shadow fell across Nero's face as his black eyes narrowed, taking in the proposition that faced him. Oliver's only reaction that of his smile slithering up his face more, Night sat back on the crate, reluctantly clasping his trousers shut as he shot a look of sheer hatred at her.  
  
As she lowered the revolver, Oliver broke the silence of the room by slowly and softly clapping his hands together. Angel's glare fell to him and her scowl grew as she took in the amused expression that adorned his features.  
  
"Wonderful work, dear sister. Finesse told me that you did very well."  
  
She held the revolver firmly at her side as her eyes narrowed into slits. "Don't anybody dare wake me up today. And don't even think about sending me out tonight on any goddamn assassination."  
  
With those final remarks to her kin, she turned on her heel and exited the parlor, climbing the flights of steps in a great thunder. She was poised to enter the doorway to the third floor when she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs behind her, and turned sharply to see the darkened figure of Nero Night approaching her.  
  
Angel's eyes narrowed in contempt at him, her grip growing firmer around the revolver at her side. "What in the name of Jesus Christ do you want?"  
  
Night was only silent, his ebony eyed locked upon hers as he drew himself to the step she occupied. She pressed herself against the wall as he inched his way closer to her, his oily hair reflecting the dim light that surrounded them. He pressed himself close enough to her so that she could inhale the rank odor that radiated from him.  
  
Night drew his head down, his nose inhaling her flesh. His gaze then locked with hers as his lips pulled themselves into a sneer. "You reek of Brooklyn."  
  
Her countenance twisted into hatred. "And you reek of Oliver. Blow him too hard this time, Night?" she hissed fiercely in a low voice, before pushing him aside and entering the threshold to her quarters, slamming the door with a shuddering bang.  
  
Taking great strides across the protesting floorboards, she released the revolver from her grasp, ignoring as it slid across the floor before coming to its resting-place. As she reached the mattress, she pulled the blood-red whore's dress over her head with great difficulty and grand screams before heaving it to the floor where it remained in a pile. She then threw herself down upon her mattress, clothed in only the corset, burying her head into the flattened pillow and digging her fingernails into the wretched mattress.  
  
Angel then turned onto her back, one arm behind the pillow and one leg bent, as she cast her gaze to the window there the light of the dawning day filtered through. She sat watching the window, unblinkingly, until a sudden thought flashed across her mind.  
  
She then slowly willed herself up, her tangled mass of hair falling over her shoulders as she prompted her legs into an Indian-style position. Angel torpidly, almost reluctantly, brought her forearm to her nostrils and inhaled. Her eyes widened and she cast her eyes to the bars of the new day the window brought into her room.  
  
She did not carry the familiar scent of Midtown upon her flesh. It was an alien redolence that she perceived. One of Brooklyn.  
  
Of Spot Conlon. 


	7. Chapter Five

Note from Author: Tres sorry about the lack of updates, but I have been going 24/7 for the past few months or so with practice for my school musical which we are performing in April! Thank you to all that reviewed, and as always please read, review, and enjoy-  
  
CHAPTER FIVE  
  
Spot Conlon was straddling her.  
  
Angel sank lower in the rickety chair, the small of her back touching the seat. "I can't deal with this right now," she stated, her voice pleading and miniscule.  
  
His lips twisted into a wicked smile as a mischievous air flickered within his burning blue eyes. He cocked his head to the right, a stand of his brassy blonde hair falling across his brow, and sank lower with her. He pressed his torso against hers, his legs sprawled carelessly upon hers, pushing his nose to hers. He was exhaling from his mouth, causing his exceedingly warm breath to play across her face.  
  
She closed her eyes to bridle the arousal that surged through her gelatinous insides. She dare not look at him for fear that she may slide off the chair from sheer weakness.  
  
"Oh, but you don't look like you are having any fun at your own party," he chided laughingly, pressing his pelvis briefly against hers.  
  
She stifled a growl of pleasure by biting her lower lip almost to the point of drawing blood, as she clenched her eyes closed as tight as humanly possible. His body shifted over hers and an involuntary moan escaped her lips.  
  
His light laugh pierced the air as she felt him begin to slide the worn- crimson suspenders off her shoulders, running his palms down her arms as he did so. A shiver danced down her spine as his hands halted at her wrists, and as he raised each of her hands to the air. She elicited a cry and her eyes fluttered open as she felt the tips of her fingers being slightly drawn into his mouth, the tip of his tongue languidly dancing over each one.  
  
Her wide eyes focused on him. It was utterly sinful the way his crystalline eyes seduced her; the way the blaze from the kerosene lamp created a striking contrast of light and dark on his comely face.  
  
"What is plaguing you?" he inquired, a touch of worry crossing his visage as he roughly tugged on the white-collar shirt that was tucked inside her trousers. She arched some so that he was able to emancipate the garment and reveal her abdomen.  
  
Unable to cite a reply, her eyes dropped to the blood-red collar-shirt he was wearing. She focused on the garment until the last of the buttons had been undone and her shirt pulled back, revealing the creamy hued flesh of her torso. She cast her gaze to him once more, the passion mixing with her boiling blood at the site of his smoldering eyes glinting with mischief. He brought his fingers down lightly against her stomach, causing her to flinch and arch her back underneath him. The tips of them burned her skin, causing her to clench her teeth and her eyes together, as she willed herself not to succumb to the orgiastic sensations that rode at her heels.  
  
He began to lower his head towards hers, and inclined it somewhat. His eyes glittered wildly and his lips were nearly pressed against hers, when out of the corner of her eye she witnessed the stealth gesture of his right arm and the violent glitter of an unknown object. He quickly backed his face away from hers as he cupped his palm around her chin and pressed her head back.  
  
She could only watch the fire dance in his eyes as she felt a prick on her neck, like the pressing of a sharp object, a pain that continued in a straight line across her entire throat.  
  
He released his palm from her chin, and she lowered her head, doing so spying the bloodstained blade he clasped in his hand, glittering ominously in the light.  
  
"Does it hurt?" he inquired in a mocking voice, as she placed a hand to her throat, feeling a wet stickiness cover her flesh.  
  
His laughter permeated the air as she brought her claret soaked hand in front of her eyes. She then glanced down, noting the blood was gushing from her slit throat, utterly staining the both of them with its hellfire red hue. Her gaze fell to him once more. He had thrown his head back and his gales of laughter were surging about the room. She cocked her head as confusion filled her brain at the lack of agony the wound inflicted to her trachea. It had a surreal quality to it, as his wild laughter filled her ears as she continued to unconsciously press her hand against the severed flesh, the dark blood coursing through the cracks between her fingers.  
  
And audible bang then sounded, and she cast her vision over his heaving shoulder to see the door to the room had been thrown open and her brother stood in the doorway, doubled over, his palms on his upper thighs. Once he regained his composure, his dark brown eyes fell to her as he closed the distance between them with a cat-like grace. A smile played upon his lips as he observed the scene. He circled around the chair, nodding appreciatively. Conlon had since gone quiet.  
  
As he did a second lap around the chair, he suddenly halted directly in front of her, rubbing his chin between his fingers and his eyes glowing in agreement. "Very good, Angel, I must say very good. Nice work. It's such a relief that we won't have to worry about that Brooklyn bastard Spot Conlon any longer."  
  
Conlon had turned over his shoulder to regard Oliver, a slight stain of red washing over his face. "Awh, Oliver, it was nothing."  
  
Oliver's grin widened as he produced a clicking sound with his tongue, playfully mussing Conlon's hair with his hand. "I always knew you were the best damn assassin-no, the best damn sister around!"  
  
She leaned forward in the chair, her eyes waxed and hand still pressing against her slit throat. She opened her mouth to issue a string of protests, yet her words were soundless. When she realized that her voice was silent, she struggled even more.  
  
The other two seemed to be oblivious to her.  
  
"So, Angel, ready to go dump his body in the river?"  
  
She once more dropped her jaw, mouthing soundlessly that _she _was Angel Haddox, Angel of Death, mistress to the revolver, not the imposter Brooklyn leader that straddled her. Yet, her brother proceeded as though Conlon were his kin. Conlon then slid slowly off of her, two sets of eyes burning into her soul.  
  
The eyes then broke contact as her brother went around the back of the chair, her frantic gaze following him.  
  
"You get the feet and I'll get the head, Angel."  
  
Conlon silently nodded as he fell to his haunches, his dark stare regarding her, simultaneously grasping her ankles and rising to his feet just as she felt the chair being sharply pulled out from behind her, her brother catching her easily.  
  
She was now horizontal in the air, her brother at her head and Conlon at her feet, as panic raced through her just as the blood raced from her painless wound at her throat. She rolled her eyes back in her head, taking heed of the amusement that seeped through her brother's pores as he exchanged glances with Conlon. "Just think of what Brooklyn will think when they find their leader floating like a gutted fish in the river the next morning!"  
  
Conlon released a chortle at her feet. The two then began to move forward as her cupid-bowed lips issued forth soundless screams, pleading for her life--  
  
Angel bolted upright on the tattered mattress covered in a mantel of cold sweat and breathing labored. Her eyes immediately opened to their entirety, and her pupils constricted painfully due to the bright light that flooded the room. She brought her knees to her chin and placed a hand to her clammy brow, pushing back tangles of yellow hair.  
  
The dream still remained candidly vivid in her psyche, along with the burning fever that still lingered on. It was a ridiculously uncomfortable feeling; the iciness of the perspiration coated her skin, yet a hot sensation was pulsing through her blood, almost like an internal itch. She released a gasp as her hand brushed over her face, wiping away the beads of perspiration.  
  
"What in the name of all that is holy was that?" she whispered breathlessly, closing her eyes. Yet, she saw the pair of burning, crystalline eyes from the dream. Her eyes immediately fluttered open at the image that haunted her, her chest heaving heavily.  
  
The image deeply unsettled her, along with the smoldering sensation that raced inside her. She shut her eyes once more, bowing her head between her knees and running both hands through her hair. She then raised her gaze to the window that ushered forth the shafts of morning light.  
  
Angel slowly rose to her feet and crossed over to the window, the floorboards unusually quiet under her weight. Resting her head against the cracked border of the pane of glass, she gazed out to see that morning was fully underway in Midtown. Several of the bulking newsies were loitering outside on the avenue, the shadows of the warehouse and the desolate apartments across the way mixing with the sun on the cobblestone street. Nero Night stood in the midst of them, his back to the warehouse and his arms gesturing wildly as he spoke to the newsies that comically triumphed over him in both size and stature.  
  
She averted her gaze away from the scene outside and to the dusty sill of the window. A shutter wrought through her courtesy of the hotness that shot through her once more. Her mind wandered once more to the dream, to Spot Conlon. Her index and middle finger found their way to her full lips, running over them, as Night's words to her at dawn haunted her--

You reek of Brooklyn.  
  
She froze, paralyzed, as the words echoed in her mind as though he had hollered them into some canyon of massive breadth. A bolt of reality then struck her as she realized that she was smoothing her lips, and she turned, disgusted, from the window only to have her eyes fall upon the revolver. It lay still on the floorboards, gleaming from a shaft of sunlight, where she had carelessly tossed it previously that morning.  
  
Immediately, her psyche was bombarded with atrocious images. Of Flick standing before her in the dark, his knees knocking, body convulsing, and eyes alight in utter fear of the barrel of the revolver that she had pointed to him. Of Charley Cicatrice and his rank breath and the even ranker scar that trailed his visage; how his life had been so brutally ended with Flynn's simple utterance of the word "three." And of the two corpses lying sprawled on the docks in night, pale slivers of moonbeams reflecting off the blood that oozed from the quarter-sized gunshot wounds to their foreheads.  
  
Angel elicited a slight gasp as she felt her knees weaken from under her. She clung to the windowsill, easing herself to the ground, as her wide eyes beheld the murderous weapon that lay casually on the floor. She pulled herself over to the weapon, stretching one arm ahead of the other, and brought her curled legs in close to her body. The gun held her in a trance, the hideous feelings that had accompanied last night returning once more with a vengeance and holding steadfast. She reached a hand out in front of her to grasp the gun, when out of the corner of her eye she viewed a subtle sparkle. Her gaze dropped to her bent legs that rested on the floor, clothed only on the ebony garters from the previous night.  
  
The sunlight that entered from the window was reflecting off the blade that she kept sheathed and bound to her upper thigh. The slain Brooklyn newsies vanished from her thoughts as she regarded the partially unsheathed blade, gleaming brightly in the light. The blade that she had planned to use to slit Spot Conlon's neck.  
  
She released an involuntarily sigh in spite of herself as she thought of the name. The passion that had lay dormant for the past few minutes roared to life once more like an inferno under her skin, heating her flesh. Her already sticky from sweat epidermis was met with a fresh coat of perspiration as the crackling, intense emotions that had been passed from him to her during the ill-fated embrace of the previous night flooded back once again.  
  
As a wave of heat rode through her, Angel brought her eyes away from the glimmering dagger, fighting the sensations that overwhelmed her. She pulled herself to her wretched mattress, lying down on her on her back. Her golden hair fanned out on the pillow under her head and her raven corset and garters clung uncomfortably to her body from the beads of sweat.  
  
The heat passed, and logic returned once more. She dare not even attempt to make anything of the wild dream or the wonderful, wild sensations it had brought on. She only contented herself with blindly reaching for her revolver and once more stuffing it under her pillow. She reckoned that it must already be somewhere near noon. Flynn would most likely awake her in a few hours; it was best to forget all the heinous events that had occurred late last night and early that morning.  
  
Angel exhaled, settling into the lumpy mattress, exhaustion immediately overtaking her. She peacefully closed her eyes. The two burning cerulean orbs gazed back at her in the darkness. A sigh came from her parted lips as she could imagine his fingers dancing over her abdomen.  
  
She soon fell into a restless sleep, a sleep relentless of the dreams.  
  
Slumber was banished from Angel as a violent shake to the torso awoke her. She immediately sat into a sitting position, her eyes only partially open, as lightheadedness descended upon her. Her brain could still not comprehend being so rudely awakened.  
  
The grip now moved to her bare shoulder, squeezing it tightly, jolting her back and forth and causing the mussed hair that framed her face to swing wildly.  
  
"Angel, for Christ's sake, wake up now." The voice was an urgent, growling baritone, a voice she recognized immediately as Flynn's.  
  
Hey dark gray eyes sleepily opened to their entirety, her pupils only the size of pinpricks due to the relentless waves of sunlight that streamed into the room. What she viewed caused the exhaustion to evaporate from her system. Flynn was positioned next to her mattress, fallen to his haunches. His golden-shot hair glimmering in the sun, he was still garbed in the same worn-out black collar-shirt and matching colored trousers from the sojourn to Brooklyn, the revolver tucked carefully within its band. Yet, it was his face that chilled her blood. His flesh had turned a pale shade of white, causing his green eyes to be even starker. She read fear and consternation within the irises.  
  
The color drained from Angel's face and she felt the room take on a glacial atmosphere, despite the blazing heat that roared outside. "Flynn, what's wrong?" she inquired, her voice barely above a whisper.  
  
His eyes gazed into her intently. "There's someone from Brooklyn here to see Oliver."  
  
And then it was as though as Angel was an axiom, for the walls about her began to spin violently. She leaned forward, planting her brow in her palm, her elbow on the mattress, for a wave of sickness washed over her.  
  
The hideous images of the Brooklyn newsies murdered at the hands of Flynn once more emblazoned themselves in her mind; their cadavers wrought in perfect detail. "What in the hell do you mean there's someone here from Brooklyn to see Oliver?"  
  
Flynn only shook his head, his eyes taking on a glazed appearance. "I, I don't know. I went out just now to get something to eat at The Hideaway and I see this fellow I never saw before standing outside the warehouse. I went up to him and asked what he wanted and he replied that he was from Brooklyn and wanted to see Oliver."  
  
Angel sharply jerked her head up, her eyes burning. "That's all he said? Just that he wanted to see Oliver?"  
  
He released a disgusted exhalation as he pushed himself to his feet. He stepped absentmindedly in a semi-circle, running both hands through his hair before dropping them to his sides and turning to face Angel once more. "It's just that. That's all he said. That he wanted to see Oliver. I knew that I should have blown him away, but I didn't. The whole thing sounded like a crock of bullshit to me."  
  
Angel rose quickly to her feet and strode over to the window that faced out onto the avenue in front of the warehouse. Inverting her palms on the sill, she pressed her forehead close to the slovenly pane of glass, trying to discern the newsboy that Flynn spoke of. All she viewed was the façade of the abandoned apartment complex along the way as it cast its dark shadows upon the street, the street inhabited by not a single soul.  
  
She turned over her shoulder to Flynn. "There's no one out there, Flynn."  
  
Flynn halted in his pacing and halted to regard her, his jade eyes wide in disbelief. "There's no one out there?" he cried in true surprise.  
  
She nodded her head and cocked a brow, causing Flynn's features to morph, to darken as his eyes narrowed. "Now, wait a minute, Angel, wait a minute. Don't go giving me that look like you don't believe me. You saying you don't believe me?" Angel could not keep the bitterness from seeping into her voice. "I don't know Flynn. I guess one of Conlon's boys could have waltzed right into Midtown in daylight and casually ask to see my brother. After all, anything's possible after your supposedly best friend holds a revolver to your head."  
  
His dark expression fell and her words left him someone slack jawed. He finally regained his composure, stalking vehemently across the room and shoving Angel aside to find her observation true. When he saw nothing on the street below, he slowly turned his head toward her to find steel-gray eyes locked in a burning glare.  
  
Flynn dropped his glance away from her, flabbergasted to find the right words as he involuntarily ran a hand through his hair. "Angel, just trust me on this one."  
  
She crossed her arms over her chest garbed only in the corset as her eyes sized him up. She snorted. "But tell me this, Flynn. Did you get your Haddoxs mixed up or something? Do I really resemble my brother that much?"  
  
Flynn's brows furrowed as he struggled to contain the beginning traces of rage. "No, Angel, Oliver isn't here. Neither is Night. If I recall you saw the two pieces of meat that they had this morning." He noted the confusion that lined her face. "The piece of meat that your brother was using as a footstool. Remember, Angel?" His words struck the nerve in her by the way her expression twisted into disgust. "Well, let's just say Nero grew tired with his and their carcasses are in the parlor as we speak. They went out this morning to the brothel."  
  
Angel felt her knees begin to buckle from under her with Flynn's words. "Oh, Flynn," she whispered.  
  
He strode expeditiously across the room to Angel, placing his hands on either of her upper-arms, his eyes glinting with seriousness. "Angel, I'm not bullshitting you with this. I have no idea in hell who he was. I want your opinion."  
  
Angel did not have to raise her eyes to his again. It was only a matter of moments before she had slid into a wrinkled pair of gray trousers, leaving the suspenders dangling at her sides, and was hurriedly following behind Flynn as their footsteps pounded against the flights of stairs.  
  
"Flynn, why in the name of God would one of Brooklyn pull a stunt like this?" she gasped, thundering down the second flight of stairs they had covered, the flight that lead to the first floor. With the fast pace, it was a struggle to bind her tangles of hair in a tattered black ribbon that she had stealthy plucked from the top drawer in her dresser.  
  
"Beats the hell of me," was his reply as he leapt off the penultimate step, stumbling and nearly losing his balance.  
  
She followed after him as he raced down the straightaway that led to the main entrance of the warehouse. Angel pumped her legs as forcefully as she could, the rotting, splintered floorboards digging into her the bare soles of her feet, each step excruciating to take. Flynn had already pushed the door open, allowing bright shafts of sunlight into the moody, dark atmosphere of the Midtown warehouse, just as Angel was struggling past the parlor. She shuttered inwardly as she passed the parlor, a monstrous room that jutted off to her left. She forced her gaze straight. She was not sure if she would be able to suppress the urge to retch if she did indeed saw the corpses of the girls her brother and his foil had murdered.  
  
She slowed her pace to a halt as she reached the doorway, pressing the warped board that served as a door back slowly and stepping into the sunlight. Her eyes narrowed involuntarily and as she began to pan the surroundings, when behind her the door slammed shut, causing her to jump somewhat in fright and turn over her shoulder.  
  
When Angel perceived that it was just the wretched board banging shut, she elicited a broken exhalation and slowly descended the set of caved-in stairs that lead to the street. Her gaze flickering about quickly, she took in the atmosphere. Flynn was standing in the median of the deserted avenue some way down to her left, turning in circles, most likely, trying to discern where the so-called Brooklyn newsie had vanished.  
  
She slowly made her way into the avenue also, her head turning this way and that. A light wind picked up in the stifling air, caressing away the first beads of perspiration that had broken out on her flesh and blowing her bound hair behind her.  
  
There was an unusual, queer air to the atmosphere. The silence was deafening and the structures around her seemed surreal, the sprawling lot of abandoned apartments before her even more mammoth. The entire scene was just not right. It sent chills down her spine.  
  
"Flynn," she called over the wind as it picked up once more, her eyes trained away from him and down the rest of stretch of road. Her voice sounded unnaturally sonorous, shattering the silence. "Flynn, this better not just be some kind of joke--"  
  
"It isn't, Angel," his voice growled defensively in reply. "It's--"  
  
She had heard the sound after he had paused after her name. It was a whizzing sound, as though some object was in flight in the air. She would have brushed it off as a figment of her imagination if she would not had heard Flynn's blood-curdling cry of agony.  
  
Angel ripped her eyes from the sight she was viewing and spun sharply about. Flynn had fallen to one knee and had his right palm pressed tightly against his opposite upper-arm. His face was contorted into an expression of immense pain; even from the distance she was at she could view that.  
  
"Flynn!" she shouted in a shrill pitch, as she dashed over to his side. She fell to her haunches; one hand on his shoulder as she tried to deduce what had produced such a frightening sound from his lips. "Flynn, what in the name of God happened?"  
  
She placed her hand upon his; trying to pry his fingers off of his flesh to that she could glance at the wound that plagued him. As she did so, he hissed in pain, jerking his arm away from her. He glowered at her, his green eyes glimmering, and his lips twisted into a snarl. He hauntingly resembled an injured animal.  
  
"Flynn, what happened?" she implored once more, her tone growing impatient, as she reached out to him. He only leaned away from her grasp, applying more pressure to his arm. Her agitation and need to help him finally grew so great that she leaned forward, falling into him and catching him off balance. He brought his hand away from the injured arm and used it to stabilize himself as he fell onto his bottom. She took this as her chance and gripped his bicep firmly. She quickly pushed up his shirt sleeve. What she saw caused bewilderment to wash over her.  
  
The left bicep held a nasty looking, circular shaped welt. The bruise itself had already turned a violent shade of dark purple, with the color becoming shades of red as it progressed out from the center. As she gazed at the welt in awe, Flynn roughly pulled his arm away from her, nursing the painful infliction once more.  
  
Though, Angel's interest was distracted from him at the moment as she dropped her gaze as her eyes began to hunt the ground in the surrounding areas. She found the object she hunted for at the tip of Flynn's tarnished boot. Falling to her elbows, she stretched out in front of him, plucking the object from the cobblestones as Flynn swore murmurs into the wind.  
  
She held the object between her index finger and thumb, her gaze studying it intensely and her expression twisted into disbelief as she rose slowly to her feet. She lifted her arm, the object twirling slightly in her grasp. As she did so, its glass-hewn surface caught the sun, causing it to refract off its surface and glitter in the light.  
  
Angel held a smooth, rounded marble between her fingers, its color an intense peacock shade. Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head in wonderment. "What the hell--"  
  
It was as she regarded the strange marble that fell from the heavens to strike Flynn, that the distant whizzing noise, no louder than a housefly, caught her ear. Before she had time to react, a small object collided into her lower right shoulder, in its wake leaving blinding agony. She issued a scream at the stabbing pains the miniscule object brought on as she dropped the cerulean marble she had held in her hands, leaving it clatter to the street.  
  
Fighting the tears that welled in the creases of her eyes at the excruciating pain, Angel writhed, desperately trying to sedate the jarring bolts of pain that radiated from her shoulder blade. She was finally able to clasp her palm over the wound, after bending her arm behind her back.  
  
She deemed that she could hear Flynn shouting to her, yet his cries were only a fuzzy whisper. She twisted her head around and searched through blurred vision until she saw it, lying on the smoothed cobblestones at her feet. A black marble rolled to a stop, glinting in the beams of sun. Her mind drew an absolute blank for a moment as she gazed unblinkingly at the raven marble.  
  
And then a thought dawned upon her that chilled her to the innermost core despite the blazing heat that saturated the air. In her mind's eye, the ebony marble slowly metamorphosed into a strikingly blue marble-like such a strikingly blue marble that had been positioned in a slingshot between two strikingly blue eyes.  
  
The pain was all but forgotten as the fear replaced it. She blinked and the marble retained its black shade once more. "Oh no," she whispered in a shivering voice. "Oh, God."  
  
Beside her on the avenue, Flynn had subdued his wild oaths to regard her incredulously and implore what was up her ass. She only stepped away from the marble, shaking her head and whispering under her breath.  
  
"Angel, what the hell is wrong?"  
  
Angel shook her head more intensely, her mutterings becoming more audible. The blue marble held steadfast in her mind as she slowly lifted her eyes to see the desolate apartment complex rise. Her eyes focused on the annex and what she espied caused her blood to curdle. Lining the rooftop, poised shoulder to shoulder, stood the newsboys of Brooklyn, all with slingshots pulled taunt, just waiting to be released. They were a fear-inducing sight, even to a Midtowner on her own turf, due to the hateful expression wrought on their visages. Flynn must have viewed them also, for he had since fallen silent.  
  
Her eyes ran down the lines of them, until they fell upon one particular form in the center of them. His dark yellow hair blew in the slight wind and caught the sunlight, making it seem as though it were a halo of some sort. From this distance she could read the revilement and loathing in his striking crystalline eyes.  
  
Her eyes locked upon his, Angel could only stand perfectly still, still holding the welt that one of the Brooklyn marbles had inflicted upon her. The blue eyes narrowed in determination, the elastic bands of the slingshots grew tighter.  
  
Angel silently uttered, "Oh, God," just as their leader's voice rang out in Midtown, issuing forth their command. Their noise of hundreds of fatalistic marbles in flight permeated the air as Brooklyn's cries of war rose with them.  
  
She could only close her eyes in anticipation of the showers of rounded glass that rained down upon her.


	8. Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX  
  
It was a ridiculously odd sensation, for one who stood in the presence of Death for nearly more than half her life span and had planned to die at the hand of a weapon such as that of the revolver she carried, to fear being slain by a spherical shard of glass.  
  
Though, in its entire mirthful appearance, the marble was a coveted object in Brooklyn and the one who could wield it was considered to have an outstanding trade. It did not matter that both Flynn and Angel had their revolvers on hand; the hailstorm of marbles bruising their hands would deter them from reaching their weapons.  
  
Angel only stood erect and paralyzed with her hand still covering the marble-inflicted wound on her shoulder blade, staring upwards at the glimmering marbles as though in a trace. They sliced through the smoldering July sky with a clean twang.  
  
It was as a marble was sweeping down from the roof of the apartment building, poised to shatter her skull, that she felt the fear begin to kindle within the abyss of her stomach and begin to make its way to the back of her throat in the form of acidly bile. It was making its path closer to its target of the flesh between her eyes, yet she could not will her feet to move. The ruby marble refracting the sun's rays from its surface was only a couple of inches from the bridge of her nose, Angel's steel eyes widened to there fullest, when she felt the forceful shove to her side that brought her feet from under her.  
  
She hit the marred cobblestones hard. She landed on one elbow, her breath purloined from her, and Flynn's heavy weight on her. Her stricken reverie was shattered with the impact, as sharp jolts of pain radiated from her elbow. She arched her back slightly and brought her head up, her full lips a gap and wild eyes surveying through the tangles of golden hair that impaired her vision. Though, her nose was smashing into the cobblestones once more, as Flynn roughly placed his hand on the back of her head, slamming it to the street. She felt him press closer into her, shielding her, as the first fleet of marbles struck the street, bouncing off it.  
  
Through the cacophony that Brooklyn was issuing, Flynn released a howl as his body convulsed slightly on top of Angel's. The marbles were apparently bombarding him as they took flight to their targets. She could not even begin to imagine the torture he was experiencing as one ricocheted off the soft flesh of her calf. She released a shrill protest as she involuntarily struggled from under Flynn, wishing to soothe the burning infliction that plagued her leg. Although he tried his best to subdue her and keep her horizontal on the cobblestones, the stinging sensation was too much to bear and Angel wriggled out from underneath him. She drew herself into a sitting position, and brought her calf close to her face, pressing her thumb tightly over the nasty welt that had already begun to form.  
  
She was so busy with containing the searing pain in her leg that she had nearly forgotten of Brooklyn. It was only when she heard the sonorous gunshot rip over the twangs of the slingshots that her deep gray eyes widened and she immediately dropped her calf, her head sharply turning to where Flynn sat beside her. His legs were akimbo and his eyes directed to the Brooklynites who still littered the rooftop, gleaming like emeralds ignited from an inferno. In his left hand, his sword hand as the pair called the hand they held their gun in, was situated his revolver, smoking. Before a marble had struck his hand, causing him to cry out in pain and drop the weapon, Angel shifted her gaze to the roof where she espied a newsie drop his slingshot. His legs faltered under him as his hands clutched his heart. In the sunlight, the crimson blood that gushed from the wound issued to his chest glimmered. He released a scream before he pitched over the apartment building annex, falling to the street before her with a sickening thud.  
  
Her lips remained in a grimly straight line as the newsies upon the roof halted in launching more marbles to release bellows and cries and lean over the edge to regard the fallen as he lay sprawled on the street. Angel ducked, missing the spherical shards of glass, as her eyes panned the rooftop. The leader of Brooklyn was not to be seen. He was most likely in the hoards that were filtering out of the decrepit apartment complex, onto the street to face in hand-to-hand combat.  
  
Beside her, Flynn elicited a hideous cry that caused her to turn sharply. One of the newsies that led the masses that were filtering from the apartment complex had pelted him on the nose. Flynn was bent over, both his hands covering his shattered nose, bright blood seeping through his fingers.  
  
Angel felt the hatred kindle within her insides and surge through her, heating her blood. Her eyes locked on the approaching newsie who had wounded Flynn's nose, she blindly felt her trouser waistband for the revolver. With a fluid motion she freed it and aligned it with the newsie's brow. With a slick click, a second gunfire shot through the chaos, embedding itself into the unfortunate's brain cavity. She felt no remorse as he fell backwards to his final position on the avenue.  
  
The slaughter of their boys seemed to have stunned Brooklyn for a few moments, as the flying marbles halted. This gave Angel enough time to pull herself over to where Flynn was, hunched over and shoulder blades shaking. She positioned herself before him, putting one hand on his brow and pushing gently down so that he lay on the cobblestones on his back. The lower half of his visage and his white shirt had been stained with the blood that gushed from his nostrils. He released a cry as she carefully pried his fingers away to witness the shattered bridge courtesy of the marble. Repulsion coursed through her as his blood stained her hands and as she witnessed his tear-rimmed eyes brought on by the excruciating pain.  
  
He was howling incessantly and babbling nonsense, wildly waving his arms in desperation to cup his hands once more over his nose. "Flynn, stop it!" she pleaded in a shallow whisper, unable to keep the fear from tainting her voice.  
  
The shouts of Brooklyn incremented with each passing moment, as did Angel's terror. A sharp twang broke through the air and she quickly ducked, lowering her head over Flynn's. The shining fall of hair that had been bound in the tattered ribbon had all but come undone, and the yellow strands soaked up Flynn's blood like a sponge, turning the ends hell-fire red. She cocked her head to find the thin, lithe figures under the power of her brother's archenemy streaming towards her, trading in their slingshots for switches.  
  
She closed her eyes and touched her nose to Flynn's decimated one, an intense bout of nausea riding through her. In those moments filled with bedlam, she pondered how in the hell this scenario had ever been allowed to pass. Brooklyn was finally taking their ultimate revenge; they had slunk into Midtown in broad daylight and were triumphing over two of Midtown's greatest shooters with pathetic marbles.  
  
It was an insult.  
  
As morbid notions of which Brooklyn newsie was going to have the honor of ending her life-perhaps it would be Conlon himself--Angel heard the bellows. They started off distant, like a whisper, and quickly rose to a great height, as though the earth was trembling. All thoughts of a Brooklyn victory were soon smashed to millions of shards as she quickly raised her head in the direction of the warehouse. It soon became aware to her that all sounds of Conlon's boys had died, and they stood frozen, their incredulous gazes directed towards the Midtown headquarters also.  
  
The door banged opened with a great shudder, thrown off its hinges as the first of Midtown came thundering out of the threshold. Elation at their presence where she usually felt repulsion surged through her blood as an unknowing grin passed over her face. Oliver had chosen his army painstakingly, as they all shared in the same demeanor: none stood under six-feet and all shared in the same sculpted muscular build and small brain. The lanky stature of a Brooklyn newsie could not rival her brother's minions; two of Conlon's boys standing shoulder to shoulder would still not equal the breadth of a Midtown's chest.  
  
Angel did not even have to look to read the sudden wash of fear that filled the faces of Brooklyn. Midtown looked quite imposing, what with the chains, broken bottles, and switchblades they wielded. Their ringing bass cry of war had punctured the smoldering air even before the last one had exited through the doorway.  
  
Angel lay in the avenue, hovered over Flynn who had since turned an ashen shade, as they filled the streets like a tidal wave, washing over Brooklyn and meshing with them. Her brother's newsies stampeded past her, ignoring her presence as some tripped over her on their way to Brooklyn. Her natural reflex was to hunch over more, her face inches away from Flynn, as she gathered her arms about him, shielding his shattered nose from the masses.  
  
Through the clinks and twangs of colliding weapons, Brooklyn rose into a similar war cry, their song of battle rising with Midtown's under the white, breathless sun above. She could hear her heart beating feverishly within her chest as her hot breath and Flynn's filled the cocoon she had created around their faces. In spite of herself, a smile touched her lips as she stared into his burning emerald eyes stark against the fresh blood.  
  
"It'll be all right, Flynn, it'll be all--" Angel did not have the opportunity to conclude her statement of hope, as she felt a hand roughly grab a fistful of her bound hair, sharply pulling on it. Her scalp immediately felt on fire, as though a blaze was ignited under it. A shrill scream issued forth from her lips as she felt herself being pulled backwards, away from Flynn, to fall to her hindquarters on the smooth cobblestones.  
  
The disillusionment had not had time to recede as she felt the hard tip of a boot connect with her chin. The blow was devastating. It knocked her onto her back, where she laid writhing in pain and seeing bursting stars. If the impact of the marble had been a whisper than the blow had been a bellow of greatest sonority for it brought tears to the corners of her eyes. She floundered like a fish out of water, gasping for breath over the excruciating agony. When the stars finally extinguished, her vision cleared to see a newsie standing over her, his feet on either side of her arms.  
  
He was clothed in black, despite the sweltering heat, a shade to match the raven quality of the slovenly hair that fell over his brow. A mirthful scowl caused his dark eyes to glint as he regarded her.  
  
Angel tried to react, tried to free herself by flailing her arms to offset his balance, but he quickly clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He fell to his haunches so that he was suspended only a few inches from her chest garbed only in the flimsy corset. The strong grip of his arms went to either of her wrists, as he pinned them to the ground, his dark eyes dancing.  
  
"I'm sorry I had to blotch that exquisite little face of yours," he said off-handedly, his gaze roaming her visage and the violent purple welt he had caused. "But you see, you killed my best friend--" Angel bucked violently under him, causing him to purse his lips together and slam her wrists once more to the cobblestones. "--you fucking Midtown whore."  
  
A raging hate was set loose in Angel, as her cheeks reddened and cold, steel eyes narrowed in malevolence. "Which friend, you stupid Brooklyn fuck? Can you name me the one I killed, or was it too hard to tell because the fishes had eaten away their faces when you found them in the river the next day?"  
  
He recoiled and his features twisted in hatred as he released a hiss. "You," he spat. "You're Oliver Haddox's sister." Her eyes glittered in reply. A look of unbelieving audacity crossed his face and glazed over his gaze. "You stupid, murderous bitch--" She spat viciously in his face at his words and in response he balled his fist and struck her across her already damaged chin. The blow wrenched a mammalian scream from her that rose above the noise of the battle around them. She arched her back under him and pressed her eyes shut as her mouth opened to its fullest to release her sobs.  
  
The Brooklyn newsie straddling her torso released a hearty laugh. "My, tell my regards to Oliver that he has some gorgeous sluts in his keep." Angel wrestled with her soul to keep the tears that had welled in her eyes from flowing, yet she could not contain them. "What? The filthy little whore is crying?" His wicked smile broadened and his dark eyes glinted with amusement as his grip on her wrists tightened. He pressed his groin closer to her perspiration-coated chest. He lowered his head, pressing his nose to her filthy, matted hair that lay disheveled, fanned-out on the cobblestones, and inhaled deeply. "My, I wish you could be crying under different situations," he whispered into her ear, his breath hot and pungent.  
  
A shutter wrought its way down her spine at the meaning of his words, yet she steadied her breathing and inhaled deeply. She then released a shrill, audible shriek into the newsie's ear. He cried out in pain, releasing her wrists and covering his ears in a gesture of pain. Her features contorted in determination, she bucked furiously under him and rose, poised to grab her revolver and shoot his brains out. Yet, the Brooklyn newsie saw this motion and dropped his hands from his plagued ear, grasping the hilt of the gun over her hands just as she aligned it with his forehead.  
  
Angel released a scream of frustration as he wrest the revolver out of her power, sending it in flight through the air and skidding across the cobblestones where it halted at the feet of a Midtown and Brooklyn sparring each other with switches. The newsie turned once more to her; his eyes narrowed and countenance twisted with uncontrollable rage. As he swung at her once more, Angel ducked in a fluid motion and quickly tore at her trousers, ripping the upper right pant leg down the seam and fumbling to unsheathe her blade. She grasped the hilt and emancipated the blade, where it glimmered in the high noon sunlight. With a cry of war, she drove it towards his heart, yet he grasped the hilt. With a burst of power, Angel drew the blade up and slashed it across the flesh of his left cheek.  
  
The newsie elicited a howl as he loosed his grip from the blade, placing a hand to the wound, the prismatic blood flowing between his fingers. His dark eyes turned to Angel, as he poised to swing at her once more, only to find that she had risen to her feet. Her breathing heavy and body aching, Angel balled her first tightly and presented the Brooklyn newsie with a stupendous right hook. He released yet another howl as his equilibrium dissipated, rendering him to fall to the cobblestones.  
  
Her tirade with the newsie complete, she whirled about in a half-moon, searching amidst the feet of the warring newsies and blood-soaked cobblestones for her revolver. She noticed it near the head of a fallen Brooklyn newsie with a broken beer bottle protruding from his chest. Angel picked up her heels and pushed through the masses.  
  
The atmosphere had seemed to become even more sweltering. The heat soared due to the shouts that pierced the air, covering all in a thick-layer of perspiration. Angel weaved her way through out Brooklyn and Midtown newsies alike. Her garments hugged her body, adhered uncomfortably to her flesh by blood and sweat. Her hair rained down her back, matted to her skin, barely held in place by the tattered back ribbon. Her chin throbbed with a vengeance, yet she pushed on.  
  
Just as she stooped to reach for her weapon, her arm outstretched, a stray blade slashed her upper right arm. She cried out in pain, dropping to her knees and bringing a palm to her severed flesh. As she bent, she felt a great weight upon her back that pushed her to the ground. When it was relieved, she looked to find that a Brooklyn newsie had fallen over her, his face mangled beyond recognition. She felt the angry bile rise in the back of her throat once more and began to choke, pushing herself quickly away from the hideous cadaver. She quickly snapped her head away, closing her eyes and covering her mouth with a hand as to suppress her from retching.  
  
When she had calmed the nausea somewhat, Angel rose to her feet, her eyes narrowed in determination and the revolver clutched tightly within her hand. There was only one way to end this brutal, bloody conflict. She stalked forward, her hard eyes panning the embattled newsies furiously, searching for him, hunting for him, the deep gash spilling blood freely and flowing down her arm, mixing with the sweat. She finally found him, his back to her, his hair catching the light and shining a dark gold.  
  
As she approached him, she was overcome with lightheadedness. The passionate dreams that he had haunted her head with last night came roaring back with a vengeance. Her blood pulsed with an intrinsic heat, one not due to the smoldering heat of summer. And then she was standing directly behind Spot Conlon; the blood rushing from her head to places she wished it would not, as he stood with his back to her, poised to strike at Hal Halloran.  
  
The poor, overweight newsie stood before Conlon, his eyes a light with fear and his voluminous flesh trembling as Conlon held a sharpened dagger in his direction. He reminded Angel of Flick; in the way, they stared in the face of death with such mortal fear. The mention of the red-headed newsie send a cold chill down her spine.  
  
Conlon did not even realize that there was a presence behind him until Angel was pressed against his back, the revolver positioned against the back of his head, pushing aside his sweaty hair, and her right arm wrapped tightly around his neck, making him stationary. His dark blue shirt saturated with perspiration pressed against her slick bare flesh where the corset did not cover, causing a heat to ignite between them. She felt him relax in her grasp and then go ridged against her as he felt the presence of the gun at his skull.  
  
She brought her lips close to his ear, saying in a low voice, "Make them stop."  
  
He only remained silent. Angel felt her temper begin to rise as she constricted her grip around his neck, clicking the trigger of the revolver and pressing the barrel harder into his head. "I said make them stop!" she snarled.  
  
Conlon still did not utter a word. He only lowered the blade he held in front of him, never once daring to move his head. Angel was intent on issuing her request for a third time when she felt the all-too familiar barrel of a gun being placed against the back of her head. Her breath bated painfully within her throat as an arm wound its way around her neck, much like the manner in which she held Conlon. A hand pushed her head upwards as fingers caressed her bruised chin.  
  
"Well, well, well, look who I have the pleasure of meeting again." Her countenance darkened considerably as she took in the voice, her eyes narrowing in hatred. It was the words of the one whom had bestowed upon her the welt that adorned the lower half of her face. She heard the trigger of his gun click in her ears as he pressed it harder into her skull, causing her to wince in pain. "I suggest that you lower your gun from Spot's head if you don't want to get your brains blown onto the fucking sidewalk."  
  
Angel felt her flesh turn a spectacular shade of red brought on by fury. She of course knew that she could twist out of the newsie's grip and lodge a bullet in his head and then turn and place one in Conlon's head before he even knew what had hit him. Yet, she refrained from doing so. She did not wish to spill more blood than had already been shed.  
  
She brought her lips to Conlon's steady ear once more. "Tell them to stop for I will pull this trigger and have no regrets. I don't give a damn if I die, but I suggest you on the other hand do."  
  
Conlon remained silent. Neither she nor the newsie behind her lowered their weapons. It was though they were in suspended animation.  
  
Finally, an angry voice hissed behind Angel. "I told you to lower you gun, you bitch." She knew he was going to pull the trigger of his weapon when Conlon finally spoke.  
  
"Put down your pistol, Spade." The words were soft, yet firm and authoritative. His voice seeped into Angel's ears, before working their way to her soul and twining around it. More of the dreams were unlocked. The voice that had haunted her mind at night.  
  
"But, Spot--," Spade countered, his vice growing tighter around Angel's slender neck.  
  
"But nothing, Spade," Conlon sibilated, turning over his shoulder somewhat so she could view his crystalline blue eye flashing in fury. "Drop your gun."  
  
The newsie begrudgingly obeyed his superior as Angel felt the barrel being lowered from the back of her head. The fear she had experienced vanished, as her expression became shadowed. She applied more pressure to the revolver as her arm about his perspiration-slicked neck tightened. "Do it, do it now or else you die."  
  
There was a pregnant pause, before a shrill whistle pierced the air. Its sound rose above the shouts and bellows of war. It ascended high and higher, reverberating off of the massive buildings and echoing down the breadth of the street. It was the catalyst of the sharp decrement of sound that followed.  
  
The barrel of her revolver still pressed firmly against the leader of Brooklyn's head, Angel allowed her wary gaze to survey the surroundings, her head turning over her shoulder. At the beckoning of Conlon's whistle, Brooklyn had stopped. Halted in whatever motions they had been conducting. This show of authority had dazzled her senses for a moment, and this gave enough leeway for Conlon to escape from her grasp. This gesture brought her senses back to reality, and her gaze locked upon him in time to see him turn around.  
  
There was a moment that passed between them, as they regarded each other unblinkingly. Angel felt her blood heat as she once more peered into the azure eyes that had emblazoned themselves disgustingly in her mind in her night notions. She read the utter shock in them as they widened to their entirety as Spot Conlon finally distinguished that he had passionately kissed none other than Oliver Haddox's sister in a state of heated bliss the previous night.  
  
It was the face that tormented her mind against her will; though now strands of his dirty blonde hair were matted to his brow as beads of sweat trickled down his face to his mouth that was open in incredulity. His eyes roamed quickly over her face, as though he was trying to convince himself otherwise. His brows furrowed and he finally softly hissed, "You!"  
  
Angel's full lips parted as she stumbled back, her revolver held lax at her side, unable to respond for a sandy, sarcastic voice soon resonated over the eerie silence that had fallen like a shroud.  
  
"Spot! Please don't think me a terrible host. A thousand apologies for not being able to greet you before hand!" She knew the voice without even thinking twice. It was Oliver. Her brother. He had finally made an appearance.  
  
Angel followed the gaze of Conlon and the gazes of all others who stood on the blood-soaked avenue to the doorway of the warehouse. He stood within the threshold, a sadistic smile baring his yellowed teeth and his dark eyes glittering maliciously, betraying the smile. In his grasp, as though to sickeningly accent his last word, he held a severed human hand. He then flung the appendage down the steps where it landed on the cobblestones and next to a thin newsie, a Brooklyn newsie, who sat hunched over, holding the stump where his left hand had once been.  
  
Angel grew weak from the nausea that rode through her, and willed herself not to disgorge her guts as a few of the Brooklyn newsies were doing. Behind her, she could feel the crackling heat spill from Conlon without even turning around.  
  
"Oliver, you bastard." Conlon's voice was strained and raw, as though that was the only line he could manage. Though, laced within his tones was something deeper, a weakness, an exhaustion as though he could burst into sobs from what havoc Oliver constantly wrought upon him.  
  
A mock frown passed over Oliver's mouth, though his eyes danced with sheer amusement. "Me? A bastard?" He shook his head slightly, pressing a finger to his lips. "No, my mother was wed to my father when I was born." He cast his eyes to Conlon, and they caught the light, shimmering like cold chips of glass. "Though, I don't know if I can say the same for your mother-" Angel briefly closed her eyes, inwardly wincing at the remark her brother had directed at the leader of Brooklyn. It had been horribly degrading, though she knew it had done its duty by the white fury she felt radiating from Conlon.  
  
"You bastard! You incredible fucking bastard!" Conlon screeched in a wild voice, quickly brushing past Angel, his dagger bared to strike at Oliver. As a reflex, Angel held her arm out and caught his elbow, halting him and expeditiously placing the barrel of her revolver to his left temple, cocking the trigger.  
  
Conlon stood beside her, his face alive with a deep red and his blue eyes burning. His shoulders heaved as his breath fell heavily from his mouth, the rage quickly pulsing through his blood. Though, as he realized his current standing, his skin dropped to a pale white, as his exhalations became shallow.  
  
Angel's clutch on the crook of his clammy elbow became tighter as her eyes fell to him and as she followed his gaze to where her brother stood. Oliver regarded his nemesis with unfettered superiority. He held his hand aloft, motioning towards Angel. "Spot, of course you must know my sister. If you hadn't realized she's the one to your left ready to place a bullet into your head if you take one more step towards me," he snarled.  
  
Conlon turned his narrowed eyes slightly in her direction, his cheeks burning crimson. "So I've had the pleasure of meeting her already," he murmured.  
  
Her skin waned at his comment, praying no one had overheard.  
  
Oliver casually descended the steps to the sidewalk and listlessly swaggered into the street, Midtown and Brooklyn parting for him alike. He held a burning stare with Conlon as he approached him. "'Tis a pity I missed the genesis of this lovely get-together. We must have another one," he mocked, pacing before Conlon.  
  
Conlon clenched his jaw, watching Oliver in sheer hatred as he held his carriage perfectly still. "Yes, Oliver, we must. And then I will kill you once and for all."  
  
Oliver widened his eyes as his lips curled into a simper. He halted in front of Conlon. "Oh, you mustn't mean that, Spot!"  
  
Angel's glance was fixated onto her brother's as he and Conlon intently locked gazes. Though he was putting on false airs, she could read his true emotions and knew that he was about to break. Against all logical reasoning, she leaned into Conlon, putting her lips to his ear. "Don't say anything!" she whispered.  
  
This action must have taken Conlon by surprise, for he shifted his gaze from Oliver to Angel, turning in her direction. Angel grew bewildered by his gesture and immediately lowered her revolver from his head, only to have Oliver quickly draw his pistol and place it against Conlon's other temple. Conlon sharply turned his head back to have Oliver's sharp, angular face only a few inches from his, his dark eyes burning into his soul. "I suggest that you refrain from listening to my sister's sweet nothings and instead pay heed to me. We will have another get together, yet this time I do not think it will be for tea. It will be end this once and for all. To decimate Brooklyn once and for all."  
  
Chills flushed through Angel as she regarded the two leaders' profiles. She viewed Conlon's eyes narrow in hate, as his sweat-coated muscles tensed. "Don't you mean 'Decimate Midtown once and for all?'"  
  
Oliver issued a wild laugh as he stepped away from Conlon, lowering his pistol. "All right, O Decimator of Midtown, when would you like to have this tea party?"  
  
Conlon's searing glare followed Oliver as he strode in a half-circle around him. "In a week. That will all be decided at a war-council--"  
  
"A war-council?"  
  
"A war-council," Conlon finished firmly. "Held tomorrow night. Name a spot."  
  
Oliver cocked a brow and brought his fingers to his chin, as though deep in thought. His eyes shifted to Angel. "Dear sister, where do you suggest we have this tea party with the fair Mr. Conlon?"  
  
Angel was silent as she stumbled back to the sidewalk, off the cobblestones. Her words caught in her throat as she realized that set of burning blue eyes were settled upon her. Oliver returned his attention to Conlon. "Just as I thought. The Hideaway Tavern."  
  
Conlon's features twisted into revulsion as he stepped back. "No way in hell, Haddox. Everyone and their mother knows the Hideaway is in the middle of your territory."  
  
Oliver tilted his head, must like a bird would, strands of his slovenly hair falling over his brow. "All right, fair enough. Care to make the call?"  
  
The Brooklyn leader nodded his head. "Tibby's."  
  
Oliver reeled back, a grin creeping over his face. He turned over his shoulder, his amused expression expanding to his newsies, causing them to release moronic laughter. He turned back to Conlon. "Tibby's? So I'd wager that little Cowboy and his friends will be joining us?"  
  
Conlon nodded solemnly once more, his blazing cheeks betraying his countenance. "I only naturally assumed that the swine you know by the names of Rylie and Horance Lyner would be joining you."  
  
Her brother's eyes glittered in the sunlight as a wicked smile played across his thin, cracked lips. "Yes, I guess they will. But as it is known to all Tibby's is in Manhattan and you'd have the upper hand wouldn't you?" He did not wait for Conlon's reply. "It'll be on neutral grounds. Gulliver's."  
  
"Gulliver's Inn. In the Bronx." Conlon echoed.  
  
Oliver nodded deeply. "Gulliver's Inn. In the Bronx. We shall meet at dusk. Bring no more than ten. Don't bring any weapons, you will be unarmed at the door. There, we will discuss the preparations for our little tea party."  
  
Conlon narrowed his eyes at Oliver's smirk. "Shouldn't you be telling yourself that bullshit, Haddox? I have my own rule."  
  
Oliver's eyes widened. "Yes?"  
  
The Brooklyn sovereign's took on a deathly serious appearance. "If I find one more body in the river in the mornings, at all, I swear to all that is holy and pure in this world I will fucking ruin you and Midtown. Do you understand?"  
  
Oliver cocked a brow, unable to keep the glowering smirk off his face. "I understand. But do the others agree?" He shifted her gaze to Angel, who stood still between two hulking Midtown newsies. "Angel?"  
  
She felt ill, as all eyes appeared to fall upon her, in particular a set of electric blue ones. "Yes," she whispered breathlessly.  
  
"Nero?" Her brother turned to his left, where Nero Night dutifully stood.  
  
"Yeah, Oliver."  
  
Oliver looked over Conlon's shoulder to where his second in command, White Wilson, stood, bruised and bloody.  
  
"Wilson?"  
  
"Agreed," he muttered hatefully under his breath.  
  
His dancing eyes fell once more to the leader. "Spot?"  
  
"Agreed," he hissed, Angel flinching at the amount of venom in his voice.  
  
A smile spread across Oliver's lips his teeth a violent yellow shade in the light. "So it's all settled. No I bid you and your little girls a fond farewell until tomorrow."  
  
Conlon glared spitefully at Angel's kin as he turned about face slowly, his sharp whistle once more piercing the air.  
  
As a clearly defeated Brooklyn picked up their heavy heels in preparation to sojourn to their district, Oliver ended on a final note. "Oh, and Spot? If it isn't too much trouble would you mind taking your slaughtered newsies with you? The wild dog infestation here is God-awful and we wouldn't want them hovering around the warehouse, eating the rotting carcasses, now would we?" Angel's eyes watched the Brooklyn leader, as what appeared to be a myriad of emotions surged through him. Slowly, the survivors gathered the dead in their grasps, intent on returning and bestowing them with a proper blessing in attempt to wash away the hideous manner in which they had been slain.  
  
Angel could only stand, awe-struck on the sidewalk as the noon sun slid lower into the sky as afternoon dawned. As Brooklyn walked slowly down the street, as though participating in a funeral march, their elongated shadows stretched out on the blood-varnished cobblestones.  
  
The last figure to disappear as the street crested into a hill was that of a boy with a stuttered gait, slumped shoulders, and hair that caught the sun like burnished gold. She released a low sigh, her posture reciprocating his, as she watched him disappear over the small hill.  
  
Angel then turned and lethargically approached the door to the warehouse, meshing with the massive, sweat-stained Midtown newsies. Their voices rose into great cries of victory and chatter as electricity buzzed around them, affecting them all save Angel. As she ascended the stairs to the threshold, one placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, shouting in a booming bass into her ear, "So what'dya think of that, Angel?"  
  
She quickly halted, drawing her revolver that she had tucked in her waistband and snapping his hand off of her. She pointed the gun at his head, her gray eyes flashing with rage. "If you ever touch me like that again, I'll blow your fucking head off."  
  
Mock surprise washed over the newsie's shiny face as he stepped back, raising his hands up in front of him. The others within range of hearing all issued forth oohs. "So sorry, Miss Haddox. Didn't mean nothing by it." He smiled boorishly at her as she quickly turned with an exasperated sigh and continued to climb the stairs, only to have her hindquarters smacked with his strong hand.  
  
She bit her tongue, fighting the epithets that clung to the tip of it and the urge to turn around and sock him across the face. Instead, she angrily entered the shady warehouse, a fury crackling off her. As she was about to go up the flight of stairs that lead to the first floor, she noticed Flynn leaning against the banister, a soiled cloth held to his nose by a hand. She broke away from the reeking newsies as they bombarded up the stairs as she stepped closer to Flynn. He took her by the shoulder and gently pushed her out of the masses.  
  
Angel's features calmed as she regarded his face. His intense eyes stared up at her from the bloodied cloth, his flaxen hair sullied with filth, sweat, and blood.  
  
A smile crossed her lips. "My, you look charming." She motioned towards his nose.  
  
Flynn rolled his flashing eyes. "I don't think I can say the same for you." Angel issued a slight gasp at what her appearance must be like.  
  
She planned to retort to his wry statement, yet their attention was drawn to the door that had been thrown off its hinges. Oliver stuck his head in the doorway, his fingers grasping the sides. "Hey, everybody!" he hollered in a lifting voice. "Drinks at the Hideaway! On me!"  
  
Joyous shouts immediately permeated the air as the newsies who had just thundered up the stairway thundered right back down. The boards moaned viciously under their combined weight and dust and bits of plaster fell from the underbelly of the stairs. Flynn and Angel had to hold their hands to their ears, releasing them only after the ruckus had passed.  
  
She turned to Flynn and rolled her eyes. "Christ Almighty, sometimes I can't tell the difference if Oliver's a leader or a fucking zookeeper."  
  
Flynn stifled his laughter as Angel released an exhausted exhalation and turned towards the now vacant stairs. "I don't know about you, Flynn, but I'm beat." She continued up the stairs, her feet dragging, until Flynn dashed to the terminus of them.  
  
"Angel!" he called, his voice somewhat muffled by the cloth.  
  
"Hum?" she asked, turning over her shoulder, a shaft of sunlight highlighting her slovenly hair.  
  
"What did Spot mean when he said he had the pleasure of meeting you before?"  
  
The question took Angel by sheer surprise. So much so, that her breath bated and she froze, the temperature in the room drastically dropping though it was scorching out. The memory that accompanied the answer to the question made her queasy with hotness as she recalled the dreams. She could not possibly respond that she had heatedly kissed the leader of Brooklyn. She would be crucified.  
  
And she did not. She only turned and vanished up the stairs, leaving Flynn at the bottom, confusion and suspicion mixed within the irises of his emerald eyes.


	9. Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: Allusions to First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, those, who were violent towards others, I took from Dante's the Inferno.  
  
Note from Author: Please forgive me for lack of updates. My computer got a virus and I had to take it in last week and it has been acting very-ahem, stupid as to where I want to put my fist through the monitor. So, no, sorry for the misunderstanding. Last chapter was not the last chapter. I meant to say that I have written the Epilogue already-though that won't be for quite a while. Though I had every intention of keeping this a short story. Sigh. A big fat I LOVE YOU to everyone who reviewed and to Ice Renegade: Yes, the romance is coming, though it won't be all happy-go-lucky (?)I always try to read the stories of those who review, though I haven't had time lately because I haven't a computer! Well, that's it for this rather comprehensive and stupid author's note so without further ado (and as always please read review and enjoy!!)-  
  
CHAPTER SEVEN  
  
Despite the sweltering nature the morning had possessed, night was refreshingly cool. The sun had just settled in the west for a bout of slumber and clear darkness had fallen, rendering the cold stars prominent in the sky. Gusts of winds travailed about, subduing the threatening return of the heat.  
  
One such gust slipped through the window that Angel had cracked before she went to bed. It brought a slight howling noise with it as it fluttered about the third floor of the warehouse. Its chill caused gooseflesh to appear on her skin as she lay on the forsaken mattress, tossing and turning in restless sleep.  
  
She elicited a soft cry in her slumber as a cold sweat washed over her, kindled by the cool breeze. She tossed restlessly on the mattress, the moth-eaten sheet that covered her becoming twisted with her legs in the motion. Her back arched slightly as she twisted to her side, her hair, pale silver in the moonlight, becoming askew.  
  
As odd as the notion was, Angel could not sleep at night. After nearly half a dozen years of assassinations under the face of the moon, she had become accustomed to slumbering away the beginnings of the next day. Perhaps the light from the sun had kept her dark nightmares at bay, or perhaps she hadn't given a damn at the grisly acts that she had performed at her brother's whim. At any rate, the night offered her no solace. Its darkness crept into the cavities of her mind and released their brutal workings. The nightmares she experienced now made her long for death.  
  
Besides the hideous deaths of all she had ever slain replaying themselves in candid, vivid details once again, she also witnessed her own fate. She was in the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, yet instead of having the fate of spending eternity in a river of boiling blood, what she was to experience everlastingly was far more hideous. She was on her knees, utterly disheveled and trembling, her head bowed and flaxen hair reflecting the flames that licked about her. Before her stood Spot Conlon, proud and erect. His blue eyes dancing with intrinsic flames and shadows of the Underworld setting off the smooth crevices of his set face, his right arm was outstretched at a downward angle towards Angel's crown. In his grasp he held her revolver, its ebony hue glowing a hell-fire red. Her revolver that had ended the short lives of all that she had slain stood in a ring about them. They were living cadavers, all disgustingly mutilated with Angel's signet of a bullet hole to the head, coated with dark red blood that glittered prismatically in the light, and all in different stages of decay.  
  
They watched on, ecstasy and orgiastic elation on their ghastly faces and crackling in the air around them as they regarded the murderess who had shot them all finally getting her comeuppance.  
  
Angel only stared at the ground, the ground that was charred and barren saturated with undiluted evil. She could not stare at anything else for she was paralyzed with complete and utter fear. Immortal fear. Her mind could not comprehend the terror that passed through her blood, chilling it. Her tongue twisted when she tried to translate it into words. It struck more than her heart; it struck her soul and bound itself around the sacred vessel. It was an ironic moment, for even though she was fully conscious of the heinous acts she committed she had always prayed to Jesus Christ that He would save her soul and place her in Heaven with the ones she had killed.  
  
O, how foolish she had been. It was the ultimate revenge. They stood around her, the air heavy with lust, as they watched as Conlon cocked the trigger of her revolver. Her eyes shut tighter, as she held back the bitter tears and the absolute terror that surged through her. She was experiencing the pure, unbridled terror that her victims had felt in the last moments of their life. And who most fitting then to assume her role as assassin than Spot Conlon.  
  
She heard her victims' murmurs rise to fever pitch as Conlon pulled the trigger and the bullet lodged itself into her head. And then nothing. Darkness blacker than pitch. Not a sound in the air. And then the darkness brightened somewhat and the murmurs returned and her eyes opened. She stared at the ground, the ground that was charred and barren and saturated with undiluted evil. Her mind choked back a sob as her fate finally dawned upon her in its entirety.  
  
The clicking of the trigger rang in her ear. It was not fitting that she should have to endure what her multitude of victims had endured only once. Nay, she was to endure it for the rest of eternity.  
  
Angel awoke with an audible gasp; her gray eyes opened to their entirety, and a cold sweat covering her flesh. She drew herself into a sitting position, her breathing labored. Running a hand through her perspiration-slicked hair, she dare not close her eyes at the recollection of the ghastly nightmare. She bit back a sob and fought the tears that welled in the creases of her eyes as she battled to steady her breathing.  
  
Darkness encompassed the room, bringing the shadows to life, save the soft light of the full moon that filtered in through the window. A coldness hung heavy in the air, chilling her to the marrow of her bones.  
  
Angel furiously rubbed her upper arms with her palms in attempt that the friction would bring about some heat. It was an act that kept her mind from wandering the heinous dream that had ravaged her psyche enough as it was.  
  
Her eyes glanced around the room as the tears dissipated. "I didn't think I had opened the window that much," she murmured, noting the cold, bringing herself wearily to her feet.  
  
Her unfocused eyes to the floor and a hand still rubbing an arm absentmindedly, she slowly shuffled to the window. As she approached it, a frigid blast of air hit her, breaking her reverie and sending her tangles of hair flying behind her like a flag whipping in the wind. She dropped her arm to her side as she averted her gaze upward to the window.  
  
She was astonished to find that, unlike the mere inch or so she had cracked it before she retired for the night, the pane of glass was pushed up as far as it would go, granting the cool summer zephyrs egress to the third floor. The dark dream was lost for a moment as bewilderment washed over her as she stepped closer to the window.  
  
"What the hell?" she whispered, incredulity laced within her tone. Her hands reaching for the pane of glass, she was prepared to close the window once more when a feeling of dread slithered down her spine. She halted; her breathing abated, and slowly turned her head.  
  
What Angel espied caused her to elicit a gasp, place a hand to her mouth, and turn around, flattening her back against the open window. A darkened silhouette of a human was emerging from the shadowed corner, its face indistinguishable until it stepped into a bar of moonlight filtered from the window.  
  
Her eyes widened and she sharply, painfully inhaled as she regarded the intruder's face. Spot Conlon, the leader of Brooklyn, stood before her. He was still garbed in the same clothing that he had worn previously that morning during the rumble, though his physique retained none of its nobility that would have been assumed to him. His lanky stature was now weary as his shoulders were rounded. The shadows only intensified the haggard expression that adorned his visage; intensified the utter exhaustion. The crystalline eyes no longer bore any sign of glint. They were vacant and lifeless.  
  
Unable to bridle her absolute shock, Angel relied on the innate reaction that occurred anytime an intruder crept into her room. She quickly fell to her haunches and launched herself to her mattress, which she landed on sprawled on her stomach. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Conlon fluidly spring towards her as she furiously reached under her pillow for the revolver. Her pulse racing violently, she grasp the hilt in her clutches, only to have the tattered pillow take flight as Conlon's booted foot sent it across the room.  
  
Angel released a sound, a hybrid of a sigh and a whimper, as she cocked the trigger, her panic incrementing with each passing moment, as she fumbled to align it with his head. Though, Conlon brought his boot down hard upon her hands and fingers, causing her to issue a shriek of agony. She quickly released the weapon and brought her hands to her chest, curling into a fetal position on the mattress.  
  
She knew that he had wrest power of the revolver as she heard the trigger click for a second time. At the sound, she immediately froze, her eyes squeezed together and her heart in her mouth.  
  
"Get up." His voice was colder than winter's chill, tones of hatred and exhaustion underlying it.  
  
Angel tacitly obeyed, her eyes still shut. She assumed a kneeling position and opened her eyes expecting to see the barrel of the revolver aligned point-blank at her skull. She released a slight gasp as her eyes fell to Conlon. He had turned away from her, the revolver at his side in a loose grasp, as he was pressed against the window, staring out into the night. The light of the moon shone upon his face and an expression of sadness, of remembrance. After a moment of reverie, he turned to her, his skin pale and hair silver in the light. "Nine. Nine of them."  
  
Angel remained silent, still, not comprehending what he was mumbling. She regarded him unwaveringly, her carriage erect as she knelt on the unforgiving mattress. It was an elaborate posture, assumed to suppress the waves of fear that washed over her.  
  
Conlon's unblinking stare and abstract countenance then vanished as though a shadow passed over his face. In their place, he wore a hideous mask of pain; his lips twisted into a sneer and his eyes glittering like blue fire. In a stealth motion, he fell to his knees on the mattress before Angel. Before she could react, he had taken one hand and plunged it into her hair, gripping it hard and tugging it until her scalp burned and tears welled in her eyes. His face only a few inches from hers, he held the revolver aloft and placed the tip against her left temple, the cool barrel pressed against the side of her face.  
  
The absolute fear paralyzed her as she watched the revolver out of the corner of her eye. Conlon gave the fist-full of hair he held a sharp tug and Angel cried out in pain, falling to her elbows, fighting with every essence of her being to halt the tears. He brought his face close to hers; the grip on her hair causing her to shake from the rage coursing through him that made him tremble. "Did Oliver think he was smart?" Angel began to convulse from the slight sobs that raked her. Conlon brutally pulled her shining hair, causing her to cry out. "Did he think he was smart?" He exhaled sharply, his breath tainted with hard liquor and nicotine blasting her cheek. "Did he think that he was so smart as to have one of his whores come to my party and try to seduce me and then kill me? Does he think I'm that pathetic? Did he think he could just kill me like that?"  
  
Angel's weeping abruptly halted at the hideous word of the profession that had always followed at her heels like a nightmare if Oliver were to ever tire of her being his assassin. Her body grew ridged and her eyes narrowed as a red hate surged through her veins. "I can answer yes to all of your questions, you son of a bitch. If my memory serves me correct, was it not I, my brother's so-called whore, who was straddling you in a chair, you at my mercy. I could have slit your throat right then and there. Though, I thought I would have the honor of killing the fearless leader of Brooklyn. Not some quivering mess on the verge of tears."  
  
The hard, malicious lines that were etched upon Conlon's face soon smoothed away to reveal his soft, handsome features once more. His eyes lost some of their blaze as his lips parted. He stared at her unblinkingly; Angel's breathing racing for want of the knowledge to know what had brought on this sudden change in expression. His grip on her tresses loosed as he raised himself to his knees once more. A grim smile passed over his mouth as his gaze flickered to the revolver and then to Angel, his visage half-masked by shadows.  
  
"Some quivering mess on the verge of tears." Angel was unsure whether the glint in his eyes was cause of the moonlight or tears brimming in the creases. "A quivering mess. You'd be a goddamn quivering mess too if each morning you found one of your friends in the river with a bullet hole in their head. You'd be a quivering mess too if in the stinking hot sun you had to carry nine, nine, of the people you'd grown up with all you life back, dead. Dead. And your opponent had none die. None. Gavin. Mickey. Paul. Zero. Duke. Blackjack. Caprice. Max. Dodger. All dead. All gone." His eyes bore into her soul, as did his moving words. They were full of utter hurt and agony that was unfathomable. Tears involuntarily came to Angel as she silently, disgustingly, thought of which Brooklyn newsie named she had carelessly slain.  
  
Conlon fell silent as he closed his eyes, as though in remembrance to those who had died so brutally at the hands of Oliver. He caressed the revolver, and Angel watched this gesture, as his eyes once more opened. They flashed with anger. "But look here. I can shoot your brains out right here and now." He lined the weapon with Angel's forehead as she lay on bent knees and elbows on the mattress, her strands of her disheveled hair falling in front of her vision. "Though, I thought I would have the honor of killing Oliver Haddox's most prized assassin. Not some quivering mess on the verge of tears."  
  
Angel squeezed her eyes shut as she felt her being suddenly numb. Whether it was from utter fear or the absolute truth in his wisdom, she could not decipher. The notion was not so incredulous: she and Conlon were alike. They shared a powerful reputation under a false appellation, their true name kept close to their hearts, unwilling to show their true nature. They had both created a façade, a façade that appeared crack-proof and faultless from an onlooker's perspective. They both were creatures of fear and blood, polar opposites in their allegiances. Yet, here they were, raw and stripped- down to their barest emotions and shedding tears to the one they were to hate with undying passion. It only seemed fitting.  
  
She finally opened her eyes, steel-gray eyes rimmed with red, and gave him her most courageous countenance. The soft moonlight reflected off the tears that lined her cheeks. "Go ahead, shoot me. I'll scream." She desperately tried to maintain a steady rhythm with her voice. "They'll hear me. They'll find you and blow your head off even before you step out of the shadow of the warehouse. Even if you do escape, they'll enter your precious district and burn Brooklyn to the ground and kill every last one of you."  
  
A grim smirk crossed Conlon's mouth as he rose slowly to his feet, the mattress fluxing under his weight. He never broke Angel's gaze, only allowed his arm to grow taunt as he kept the revolver aligned with her brow. "Will they really, now?"  
  
Angel gazed past the barrel of the revolver and into his burning eyes. "I don't give a damn if I die, but I suggest you on the other hand do."  
  
His mocking simper broadened as he lowered the gun. His lips parted, as he was poised to utter a remark to her. Angel saw this as her sole chance to wrest her revolver out of his power. With a shriek, she brought a leg out from under her and extended it. In a fluid motion it connected with an unsuspecting Conlon's hands. The sheer surprise of the impact caused his eyes to wax and grip to loosen on the revolver, the tip of her foot sending it in flight across the darkened room where it landed with a clatter in a mass of shadows.  
  
Conlon elicited a growl as he fell to his haunches and lunged at Angel on the mattress. A shrill cry issued forth from her lips as she quickly rolled off the mattress and onto the splintered floorboards. Conlon landed on the mattress with a soft thud, the last remnants of moldy feathers that filled the mattress wafting into the air from the impact.  
  
Angel's eyes flickered to see his burning gaze upon her as he drew himself from the mattress. Her heart pounding in her chest, she assumed a sitting position, her eyes locked upon his. As he advanced towards her, she blindly reached to her right upper thigh. She groped under the material until she felt the sheathed blade that was kept bound to her thigh. Fumbling, she awkwardly unsheathed it just as Conlon lunged for her. On impulse, she raised her legs to the sky just as he took flight, the soles of her feet settling on his lower torso. With a heave, she pushed her legs towards her head, sending a bewildered Conlon over her head to where he hit the floor with great cacophony.  
  
Not daring to turn around to regard where he had fallen, Angel fell to her hands and knees, the blade clasped in one hand, and pulled herself away from him, the splinters of the floorboards digging into her palms. Crystalline tears streaming freely down her face, she felt her body begin to break down as the mortal terror began to consume her. She could finally crawl no longer and she halted, bringing her brow to the floorboards. Her pale silver hair falling around her face, she pounded the fist the clutched the blade in furiously against the ground, allowing the sobs to overpower her.  
  
She soon felt Conlon's strong hands blindly groping her legs, pulling her back towards him. He flipped her easily onto her back, pinning either of her wrists to the floor with his hands, as he placed one bent knee between her legs and the other near her right hip. Angel turned her head away from him, not being able to look at him. He emancipated one of her wrists so that he could remove the glittering dagger from her grasp. She turned her face towards him at this action, and lashed out, bucking violently under him and bringing her free arm across her body to gain control of her sole remaining weapon.  
  
Yet, Conlon easily brought the blade to his mouth, clenching it between his teeth as he once again pinned her to the ground, slamming her wrists above her head. Angel regarded him, her body and soul trembling with undiluted hatred. He was suspended over her, his perspiration-slicked face but a few inches from hers, slovenly strands of hair falling across his brow. His features were set and his eyes blazed with a passion. In an expeditious motion, he spat the blade from his mouth so that it landed away from Angel's reach. She turned her head to where the weapon had fallen with a distant clatter. It had landed in a bar of moonlight that filtered in through the open window, glimmering in the beams.  
  
"Sorry, doll, but you already used that line on me." Angel sharply snapped her head to observe Conlon. Not allowing her time to respond, he continued in a mocking tone. "You've got me all wrong, Ms. Haddox. I thought you at least knew something after that hot little number we shared." He released a soft laugh and applied more pressure to her body as she writhed furiously under him. "But you don't." The simper that had brightened his features soon vanished, leaving him with the pathetic, sorrowful expression that he had worn when she had first seen him that night. Angel immediately halted in her attempts to escape, startled by the sudden change in demeanor.  
  
He brought his softened gaze to hers as his eyes roamed hers. "No, you got it all wrong. Out of all people I thought that you would get it right." His grip on her loosed somewhat as his head bowed, his voice overcome with emotion. "You have it backwards. I don't give a damn if I die, yet you do." She swore she could feel a lone tear fall to the hollow of her neck.  
  
Angel's eyes narrowed. "And just how in the hell do you conclude--"  
  
He sharply raised his head, and her suspicions were confirmed. His jaw was clenched in mammalian pain as his eyes glittered with unshed tears that he desperately tried to suppress. "Because I can see it. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it in your eyes today. I saw fear in your eyes. You're not one of them. You want more. But your scared shitless." His eyes utterly burned into hers. "Scared shitless. You want to die in this life you created for yourself, you don't know who the hell you've become. But you don't die because you think somehow you can always go back to the past, that the future will be brighter. You bitch, you fucking murderous bitch, you are the same as me."  
  
The laments that she had suppressed for to long were ignited once more at the absolute candor of his words. Her body convulsed under him as she turned her head away blinded by tears, not being able to face him. She need not inquire how he had read her person so correctly-he had spoken for himself, also.  
  
Just as when they had shared the fiery kiss, it had not been of pure, unbridled lust but of longing, of needing for comprehension of why their souls were in so much turmoil. And now, as they both wept uncontrollably of how hideous their lives were, if did not matter if he was indeed Spot Conlon, leader of Brooklyn, and hated enemy of her brother. It was a potentially odd way to release fettered emotions, and that the electricity between them did just.  
  
Alas, over the sonority of the tears came a rapping at the door. Angel immediately froze, her sobs halting and breath bating in her throat as a cold fear washed over her. Conlon's grip had fallen lax on her wrists.  
  
"Angel? Angel? Are you all right in there?" Angel inhaled painfully. It was Flynn's voice. She quickly locked gazes with Conlon, who reciprocated in her widened eyes.  
  
"Yeah, Flynn, I'm fine!" she shouted, her voice broken, as her eyes lingered on Conlon.  
  
There was a pause on Flynn's side of the doorway before he responded, "No, you're not, Angel? What the hell is with your voice! Open the door."  
  
Conlon rose to his knees as Angel replied. "Flynn, I'm fine! I was sleeping until you came and woke me up!"  
  
"Angel, you're not fine, now open the door," he replied, his voice hard.  
  
Angel rose to her feet as Conlon had, and regarded him warily as he stood still, a beam of moonlight washing over him. He conspicuously wiped at his eyes, eyes that were red and narrowed in hate. His pale face was twisted in pain. "Jesus Christ, Flynn, I said I'm fine now go!"  
  
"Angel. Angel, you're not fine now open the door. Open the goddamn door, Angel!" She elicited a low gasp and directed her eyes towards the darkened door to the third floor as Flynn began to throw his weight against it. Panic-stricken, she turned sharply towards Conlon only to find that he was beside her, his mouth near her ear. His hot breath entering her canal, he whispered, his voice low and wrought with tears and hatred, "There's still time."  
  
She turned him, her eyes wide and lips a gap, startled by the sheer intensity of his voice and not comprehending his cryptic statement. He stared at her, his face dark and eyes red.  
  
Angel jumped and turned as Flynn threw himself against the door once more, the measly plank of rotted wood shuttering under his weight. She averted her eyes from the door and turned to Conlon once more, yet only found that he had vanished, leaving only in his wake the open window that granted the cool breezes to entrance to the third floor. She elicited a gasp and dashed over to the window, placing her hands on the sill, and peered out into the night, her hair tossing behind her. In the blackened street down below, where the massacre of the districts had taken place that morning, she saw a shadow figure running at break-neck speed. If she listened carefully enough, she could hear his heavy shoes connecting with the cobblestones and ringing out into the world. As she watched him, his words came to her once more, though she could not make sense of them for the life of her.  
  
It was only when Conlon had crested over the hill in the street, disappearing and Flynn had finally succeeded in breaking down the door, causing it so splinter to pieces, that she understood the true extent of his wisdom.  
  
There's still time. There's still time. There's still time to save your soul.  
  
Involuntarily, tears came to her and cascaded freely down her already stinging cheeks as she stared out into the empty avenue.  
  
There's still time to save your soul, Helena Haddox. There's still time. That dream doesn't have to be your fate.  
  
She broke down even harder as she rested her lower arms on the sill and clutched her head within her clammy hands.  
  
Flynn's footsteps caused the boards to creak as he approached her, warily. "Angel?" he asked quietly, reaching out a hand to her.  
  
Angel suppressed her tears and slightly raised her head from her hands, a red hatred brimming over her.  
  
"Angel?" he inquired gently once more, advancing towards her.  
  
Stealthily, Angel straightened, her countenance twisted in rage and her eyes burning. She inched towards the warped bureau that was a few paces towards the window, her back arched and gaze never leaving him. She rifled blindly on the surface of the piece of furniture, finding a small trinket and clutching it firmly in her grasp.  
  
"Why can't you just mind your own fucking business, Flynn?" she shrieked, her voice made raw by tears, as she bent her arm back and launched the object furiously at Flynn. He ducked, his gaze following the object, as it sailed over his head, landing in a darkened corner of the room.  
  
He cast his gaze to Angel once more, his expression that of wild bewilderment, and straightened. He was silent for a moment, before his sonorous voice ripped the cool air. "Angel, what in the name of Jesus Christ has come over you?"  
  
Angel regarded him as a heavy silence hung between them, regarded him as his bare chest lurched with each harsh breath he inhaled.  
  
There's still time to save your soul. Helena, there's still time.  
  
His darkened form was soon made blurry and distorted by the tears that found their way to her tired eyes once more. The sobs returned with a vengeance, wrecking her soul, and causing her to become weak. She released the sill as she collapsed slowly to the ground, her legs curled under her. She buried her tear-streaked face within her hands as her shoulder blades shook uncontrollably as she released the agonizing pain that had built up within her soul.  
  
Flynn called out her name in grand surprise as he crossed the room and fell beside her, placing a hand on her quaking shoulder. Angel raised her head and looked into Flynn's emerald green eyes flooding over with worry. "Flynn, Flynn, do something with me," she choked.  
  
"Anything, Angel," he softly whispered breathlessly, moving closer to her.  
  
Silently, Angel brought her slender hands to his, entwining their fingers together. Angel looked at him just as he cast his wide eyes to her in surprise.  
  
"Pray with me, Flynn." Flynn remained silent at her request. Her soft marred by tears voice found it weak at first, filled the cool room, though grew confident with sound as she tightly closed her red-rimmed eyes. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed on us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever and ever. Amen."  
  
Her eyes remaining closed, she gently applied pressure to Flynn's hands for him to join her. She soon began a second round, his voice sparingly joining her with the unfamiliar words. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed on us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever and ever. Amen."  
  
On the third chorus, her voice, sweet and soaring as she spoke the hallowed words, was joined by his, unsure and wary, in unison. They parleyed, basking in the light of the full moon, eyes closed and the light rendering their flesh and hair a shade of silver as so they almost looked ethereal.  
  
It was a sacred moment for one of them, at least. The one who wished above all else to shed the ugly cocoon she had bound her true being in and to emerge transformed as a fantastical, beautiful creature. The other, who did not have any barriers holding him down, did not know any other way of life and in that he could not appreciate the prayer.  
  
Yet, Flynn's voice never wavered, and he spoke in a low accompaniment to Angel's passionate voice full of tears all through the night, until the moonlight they sat in was changed to sunlight. Until Angel's voice left her from sheer exhaustion and she fell into a deep slumber.  
  
Flynn pulled her close, her head resting against his bare chest, his back against the splintered wall below the window. He sighed, his expression blank, though his eyes reflected the weariness he felt.  
  
The sun was awakening in the east, and the first pale slivers of sunlight were finding their way in through the open window. Flynn exhaled and settled against the wall, Angel's head slipping from his chest and falling to his lap, where she remained sound asleep.  
  
He regarded the assassin with unabashed wonder. The dim bars of light reflected off her fall of hair, causing it to glow like burnished gold. She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. An absolutely beautiful assassin.  
  
He snorted at the notion. She sure the hell was a complex character. He had only been in Oliver's services for the past two years and had grown mighty close to Angel Haddox. Close enough to call her his closest friend in the world if he had any. Yet, he was a highly in demand assassin, at least he was before Oliver hired him to partner with his sister.  
  
Flynn lowered his gaze and regarded her once more, deep in slumber, and the tears remaining on her cheeks glittering in the light. His closest friend. Yet, he knew nothing about her. Absolutely nothing.  
  
Not even her true name.


	10. Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT  
  
The heavy summer showers had passed, willing the sun into hiding. The sky was raw, its shade the color of slate. A thick fog hung in the air like a shroud, so heavy one could inhale and feel the vapors slide down the trachea and settle in the lungs. An overpowering dampness clung to the mist, rendering the atmosphere to retain the glassy, glittery appearance that occurred only at the end of a rain.  
  
The slight zephyrs of the previous night had quickly progressed into quick-tempered winds at the wake of a thunderstorm that quelled the semi-drought the area had been experiencing courtesy of the breathless summer sun.  
  
This absolute about face in weather and the added factor that one was rendered nearly blind in the oppressing fog left many not to travail the streets of Brooklyn that late afternoon. The only sounds on the Brooklyn Bridge were the quick fall of footsteps of Angel Haddox and Nero Night.  
  
The latter walked ahead of the former, her steps short, intense eyes watchful, and head jerking sporadically about.  
  
Angel snorted. It was some stroke of irony; as though nature was playing a cruel ruse upon them. They had left the warehouse that morning completely cloaked and hooded, poised to skirt the darkened back alleys as to not arouse suspicion. Yet, here they were in full guise and Angel could not even see a few inches in front of her nose, nonetheless the Brooklyn newsies espy them.  
  
She halted, her temper starting to make an appearance. The rage built in the pit of her stomach and ran through her blood; throughout the network of vessels to the tips of her fingers and toes and roots of hair that was bound by the black ribbon at the nape of her neck.  
  
She turned sharply around, her head snapping with the motion, her storm-gray eyes burning and discerning nothing but the heavy swirls of fog. "Night, are you still there or has my wish come true and you've finally ended your goddamned worthless life by jumping off the bridge?"  
  
Her scathing remark fell short in the vapors. After a few moments of impatient waiting, Angel espied a dark figure approaching her through the veils of mist. An eyebrow cocked insolently and arms crossed over her chest, she waited as the figure's image grew sharper as the vividness of his ebony cloak incremented. The figure finally stood before her, resembling Death prepared to beckon her into the mist due to his garments of clothing.  
  
A wry smile crossed her full lips at the morbid thought. Well, it isn't far from the truth, she thought with a hint of sick amusement.  
  
From the visage shadowed by the hood came the oleaginous voice of Nero Night. "Jiminy, Angel, are you always this charming or did I just catch you on a bad day?"  
  
With one expeditious motion he grasped the front of his hood and threw is back, revealing his summer-tanned skin. A coat of the fog's dew clung to his face and gave his already oily hair a disgusting gleam. A deep scowl lined his thin lips and caused his dark eyes to glow. He glared hatefully as his words lost their hint of amusement.  
  
"Jesus, Angel, I don't see how Finesse can put up with all your bullshit. If I could of I would push you off the goddamn bridge and just go to Brooklyn and finish the job myself."  
  
His hood still lowered; Night stalked past her, Angel's loathing gaze following him. "Finish the job? Finish the job? You make it seem as though we are going to kill someone!" Her voice was low, and she trembled as she fought to bridle the rage.  
  
Night did not reply as he continued to briskly stride forward, a slight breeze circumventing through the thick fog, tossing his cloak behind him. His insolent silence was the match that ignited the impatient fury that fought to be uncaged within her. Her face becoming livid and her eyes burning with a fire, she tempestuously strode over to Night, standing before him and causing him to halt.  
  
She gazed up at him, a zephyr throwing back her hood and caressing her bound hair as it tossed behind her. "Nero Night, I swear to all that is still holy and pure in this world that if you even draw one of your weapons I'll have no qualms whatsoever with keeping the oath I made that night."  
  
Her eyes burned piercingly into his indifferent ones. Briefly, she swore she noted a flicker of fear flash across the orbs and temporarily shatter the cool façade. Yet, they soon regained their hardness once more as a sneer crossed his cracked lips. "What did I even say that night, Haddox? You're going soft. Finesse didn't believe me, but you're going soft. You don't have the guts to shoot me.  
  
"Why don't you stay here and knit me a sweater like the little girl you are? Or better yet, why don't you get down on your knees and think sweet thoughts of me, sweetheart, because you're going to need all the practice you can get at being a whore. Not that you already aren't one, but the ones I've fucked are quite experienced, so you'll have quite a lot of catching up to do. I, on the other hand am on my way to becoming Oliver Haddox's new assassin once I get you and Finesse out of the way.  
  
"Now, I have a prior engagement at the Brooklyn Lodging house to introduce Master Conlon to my switch that I just sharpened last night."  
  
With a finalizing stare wrought with supreme authority, Night brushed past her, hitting her shoulder and causing her to recoil in a tinge of pain. A red haze of hatred clouded her vision and her body trembled with furor as she regarded Night's proud swaggering gait. Without even reviewing the notion twice, Angel reached into one of the many folds of her deep gray cloak, her glance never wavering from Night. Fumbling blindly, her hand felt the cool base of the revolver that was situated between the elastic waistband of her trousers and the flesh of her lower abdomen. Her grip on the base tightening, she pulled the revolver from her cloak with a flourish. In a fluid motion, she extended her arm skyward and pointed the weapon towards the cloudy heavens.  
  
Night's dark figure was dimming in the overpowering swirls of mist that haunted the Brooklyn Bridge as her slippery fingers felt the trigger and cocked it. Involuntarily, in a ritual that she had performed so many times before, she pulled the trigger.  
  
The deafening gunshot ripped through the thick air, rupturing the silence and shattering it into millions of shards. Angel immediately recoiled at the hateful, sonorous sound and winced, her teeth set on edge. Her pulse quickening, her eyes immediately fluttered open to find Night standing but a few feet from her. Utter incredulity and shock lined his features. His dark eyes were wide and glittering and his mouth was gaped in disbelief.  
  
His lips moved wordlessly for a few syllables, before the jolt subsided and his hoarse voice filled her ears laced with blue curses. "Angel, what the hell are you thinking?" he bellowed, his tone growing. "Did you ever stop to think that Conlon and one of his newsies could be on this goddamn mother whoring bridge and we couldn't even see them? Or have you just lost your fucking marbles once and for all?"  
  
Angel's countenance was quite cool and collected as she strode over to Night, her hips swaying some with her gait. The smoking revolver still clutched firmly in her grasp, she approached Night, her cold eyes upon him. Stepping closer, she lowered her mouth to his ear, as he cocked his head incredulously at her. She pushed the revolver into his abdomen so that he froze, arching away from the weapon.  
  
Her hot breath filling his ear canal, she whispered in a low voice, "Maybe I have lost my marbles, Nero, maybe I have. But that still doesn't mean that you can push me around like one of your little sluts. I came to Brooklyn in this goddamn fog to spy on Spot Conlon and Jack Kelly and the other eight that are going to the war-council. Not to kill anyone. Those were my direct orders from my brother and I am not about to fall out of his favor. I am in charge here and if you so much as lay a finger on Spot Conlon I will blow your brains out. As much as I would love to kill him, Oliver did not give me the order to carryout his death on this day.  
  
"If you so much as ever draw that pathetic excuse for a switchblade, I will blow your brains out. Remember that I have a revolver, which I can play like a virtuoso, and you are little boy with a switch. If you so much as attempt to touch my gun, I will blow your brains out."  
  
Angel stepped back to regard Night's reaction. His face was twisted in cold rage and his dark eyes glimmered with the utmost hatred. "You're only a girl, Haddox. If I wanted--"  
  
"If I wanted to could have lodged a bullet in you're brain many years ago. If you even try to so much as touch me I'll kill you. That, Nero Night is a promise. And I have never known a Haddox to break their promise."  
  
With that, she gave herself the satisfaction of glancing into his eyes glazed over in malevolency and loathing. She then brushed past him, training her eyes forward as she grasped her hood with both hands and pulled it up once more, concealing her shining hair and face in shadows. The revolver was locked firmly in her clammy hand, prepared for use if needed.  
  
The mist was waning. They had to hurry if they wanted to make haste to the lodging house with out having suspicion drawn upon them.  
  
It hadn't been an assassination, though it had been just as odious a task.  
  
Angel had awoken that morning, sprawled on her side on the splintered floorboards under the window of the third floor, the ungodly bright sun flooding the room and hurting her eyes. As soon as she had taken her first breath of consciousness, it felt as though an ice pick was being driven into her skull; felt as though her brains had been put through a processor and were ripping apart inside her cranium.  
  
It had been fantastically worse than any hangover she had ever encountered. It had been even worse than the hangovers she acquired from the cheap gin Flynn acquired and both downed after an assassination.  
  
But she hadn't drank. She hadn't touched a single iota of alcohol since that day she and Flynn went to Brooklyn-the day she never wanted to recall for as long as she still breathed.  
  
Her mind and soul had felt weak and her physical body ill by the way she disgorged her empty stomach with her head hanging out the window. She had felt hot and cold, had chills that could have perhaps been the cause of a fever.  
  
Though, she knew it was not a physical affliction that plagued her. Yet, she found it quite astonishing to believe that three words numbering three syllables-  
  
There's still time.  
  
--could account for the overwhelming sickness she encountered. She spent the remainder of the morning, or perhaps it had been the rest of the afternoon for the time slipped her mind, sprawled on her stomach on the mattress. She stared unwaveringly at nothing in particular, falling in and out of blurry bouts of slumber, feeling to weak too muster enough energy to even find Flynn and head down to the Hideaway for food.  
  
She needn't sell newspapers, for she had never sold one in her entire life. When she came to think of it, she did not think she knew an entire Midtown newsie who had sold a newspaper in their entire life, either. It was quite a sickeningly funny running gag with Oliver. Instead of being, she dare say, good and honest like Brooklyn and selling a pape for a living, Oliver had his sister and the best contracted assassin this side of New York hold a gun to a patron's head or have his thugs break their legs if they did not give him the money or supplies he craved. Being an assassin under Oliver was actually quite a compensating profession.  
  
It had been a near impossible endeavor to keep the appellations of Brooklyn and Spot Conlon far from her mind. Though, the vehement questions that sprang to mind with the names were far more brutal to ignore.  
  
She was still toying with the notion that Conlon visiting her chambers had only been a staple to the dream she had had of Dante's Inferno, when the knock had came to her door. Not being able to block the infernal noise from her throbbing brain, after twenty raps or so she lethargically dragged herself to the doorway and opened it only to find the stairs empty. Cursing the bastards under her breath, she had sluggishly dragged herself down to the second floor only to be beckoned into Oliver's room.  
  
There she was given her orders.  
  
She and Night were to go to the Brooklyn lodging house before the war-council and eavesdrop in on what the leaders of Brooklyn and Manhattan were chattering about. They were then to report back to the Hideaway, where the Lyners would be awaiting. They would rendezvous over a few bottles of booze and then head over to Gulliver's in the Bronx where Conlon and Kelly and eight others would be waiting.  
  
At first, she fancied she had not heard the order correctly. Oliver had never issued an order for her to travail to Brooklyn without shooting anyone, nonetheless when the sun was still in the sky and sans her partner, Flynn. She had protested as passionately as her will would allow, yet Oliver had simply waved away all of her objections.  
  
Due to her superior's command, Angel now found herself a few hundred feet away from the Brooklyn lodging house, gazing at the broken structure through the dying mist. A light breeze blew through the air, tugging her hood back somewhat, yet she frantically grabbed at it. She pulled it down lower as to cover her face more, her hands clasping it together at the material below the chin.  
  
Eliciting a listless sigh, she cast her eyes from the lodging house heavenward. The heavy thunderstorms of the previous night had left the thick, alien fog as a residue. Yet, through the mist she could discern the slightest outline of the setting summer-sun. The vapors would dissipate soon, leaving she and Night vulnerable to suspicion as they were garbed in their curious attire.  
  
Her nose scrunching briefly at this ill misfortune, she exhaled deeply and turned over her shoulder. Night's darkened form was approaching her in his gliding gait. She watched as he reached into the folds of his cloak to retrieve a personally rolled cigarette, place it between his lips, and stop briefly to strike the match off the bottom of his shoe. Cupping his hands over his mouth and lighting it, he pitched the match carelessly away and inhaled deeply.  
  
When he halted before her, she could only view the smoke fuming from his nostrils and the dim red glow that the embers cast. Her grip on the revolver tightened.  
  
Angel regarded Night in silence for a few moments, as he said nothing, only inhaled on the cigarette. He finally spoke from beneath the hood. "That's the infamous Brooklyn Lodging House? It sure is a shithole."  
  
She glanced over her shoulder quickly to view the lodging house before turning to Night. She brushed his statement off by caustically countering him. "And what would you know, Night? When's the last time you looked at where you lived?"  
  
Angel swore she could feel his eyes smolder into her from underneath the hood as the smoke billowed into the air. Her gaze faltering from his, an idea came to her and with her free hand she patted her pocket trousers for the cigarette Flynn had given her a few days prior. Placing it between her lips, she stared blatantly at Night. When he did not make a move to light the cigarette, she asked, "Well, do you have a light?"  
  
He paused before he replied in a sniveling tone, "Why can't you just light your goddamn cigarette with you're revolver? It's still smoking, you know."  
  
A sneer crossing her lips, she tossed her head. "You know, you're so damn hilarious, Night. If the job of assassin doesn't work out maybe you can be Oliver's court jester. You have the jackass persona down pat already." She decisively added, "But, Nero, do you really want me to use my revolver again?"  
  
Her words found their mark by the way Night begrudgingly reached inside his cloak and withdrew a match, which she quickly took from him. "Thank you very much, Nero. You're such a good cocksucker," Angel said, lighting her cigarette.  
  
The wind picked up, throwing back Night's hood so that she could catch a glimpse of his glowering visage. She smiled in spite of himself as he huffily pulled it over his head once more. Exhaling once again, he pitched the cigarette to the ground and snubbed it out with his slovenly shoe, smoke still wafting around him.  
  
"So what the hell are we going to do all afternoon? Stand outside the lodging house having a smoke break? Oh, maybe we can ask Conlon and Kelly to join us! I sure as hell can't kill them but maybe we can have a drag with them. How 'bout it, Ang?" His voice's dominating tone was the usual sarcasm, yet she noted strong undercurrents of poorly bridled fury laced within.  
  
Angel coolly exhaled, lowering the cigarette to her side and tapping the ashes to the cobblestones. She gazed at the lodging house. "We have to find out where they would be holding a conference. I was in the lodging house that night and I highly doubt that it would be in the parlor because sound travels quite easily outside. I suspect they wouldn't want anyone to hear their plans."  
  
"I guess not," Night sneered.  
  
She disregarded his negative comment, her gaze never wavering from the Brooklyn headquarters. "I don't think they would have it in the bunkroom because that's where all the newsies would congregate and I doubt Conlon and Kelly would want everyone and his brother to hear what they were discussing, even if it was about Oliver."  
  
"Tell me when you stop thinking aloud and reach a point," he sighed loudly.  
  
Her eyes quickly scanned the smeared windows until they halted upon one. Her breath caught in her throat. "That room. That's where they would be." She involuntarily raised an arm, extending a slim index finger towards the window in question.  
  
Night's gaze followed to where she was motioning too. "And what makes that room so special?"  
  
"Because," she whispered breathlessly, "that's his room."  
  
"His room?" Night disparaged.  
  
"Spot's room."  
  
"Spot's room?" He asked, stretching the syllables of the appellation to their maximum allowance. "Am I noting an informality with the leader of Brooklyn, Haddox?"  
  
Angel blinked, her reverie immediately shattering. She felt her flesh heat until it was scorching. She furiously prayed under her breath for thanks that she was wearing the cloak for she knew not what vinaceous shade her skin had taken on. She snapped her head roughly towards Night, the motion pulling the hood back some and revealing her narrowed, storm-gray eyes.  
  
"Conlon's room! I meant, Conlon's room." She paused before continuing, her eyes dropping from him, clearly ruffled. "Christ, you can't even call people by their names anymore? What's this world coming too?"  
  
She felt his breath breeze against the back of her neck, causing the hairs to prickle, as he stood behind her, only a few inches separating them. "The world's coming to nothing, but you're coming to something, Haddox. I suspect that if you don't want others to have the wrong impression of you then you bite your tongue on certain subjects where your mind, and other regions of the body, turn to gelatin."  
  
She whirled around to face him, her hood falling down and revealing her hair glinting in the first rays of sun that passed through the fog. Her eyes narrowed and face heated, she stared into his cloak. "And just what's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Oh, nothing," Night sighed indifferently, plucking the cigarette from her fingers and placing it between his lips, inhaling deeply. "It's just that I was wondering how you knew where Spot's room was, that's all," he inquired mockingly, exhaling.  
  
"I told you," Angel cried, her voice taking on a shrill pitch. "Whenever Midtown invaded Brooklyn two years back I had a scuffle with Conlon and it was in that room there."  
  
He was only silent as the smoke billowed lazily from under his hood.  
  
His silence was like a splinter she could not remove from under a thatch of sensitive skin. "What?" she roared, the word spilling from her like lava erupting from an active volcano.  
  
Night shrugged, tapping ashes to the ground with a finger before pitching the cigarette not far from where the other rested. "Nothing, Haddox, it's just that I find it quite hard to believe that you can recall Spot Conlon's room of all rooms. And even if he was in the room at the time that you had- what was your word? Ah, scuffle. Even if he was in the room when you had a scuffle with him what makes you conclude that it was even his room? It could have been anyone's."

"And if by scuffle, you mean fucked. That was how you were going to knock off Finesse, weren't you?"  
  
She grasped the full extent of the utter smugness in his voice. He only used this intonation whenever he knew he was correct or on the trail of a subject that one would give their soul not to disclose. Angel feared the latter.  
  
She locked with his gaze, her eyes hard and cold. "What are you implying?"  
  
He stepped closer to her, his visage covered by shadows. The putrid odor of his nicotine-infested breath invaded her nostrils as he spoke. "I'm implying that I can see right past you, Haddox. You may think you're the only one that can see it and are wondering why in the hell Oliver can't see it, but I can. I know you've gone soft. I know. I could sense it in your blood ever since we shot that Brooklyn newsie. You hesitated and you never hesitated before--"  
  
Angel interrupted his words by pulling the revolver from her side and pressing it against Nero Night's skull with taunt outstretched arms. The flesh of her skin had since become a stark white and her eyes blazed. Tremors slid up and down her arms, causing the weapon to shake badly against his brow. Her words trembled as she spoke. "I will shoot you know, Night--"  
  
He was close enough that she could discern the broad smile on his cracked, thin lips. "I know you would shoot me now, Haddox? Isn't that a bitch! You would shoot me, one of your own kind, but you won't let me lay a finger on Conlon, or, what did you call him, Spot?" His gales of hearty laughter filled the misty air.  
  
Angel felt an overpowering sickness wash over her and her head suddenly become light as he knees began to buckle. She found the damned crystalline tears coming to her and rendering her vision blurry as she regarded Night's boisterous form, his shoulders shaking from succumbing to the laughter.  
  
The hatred and the loathing welled in the pits of her stomach. She despised him for she knew he was correct in every single aspect he had touched on. She despised Oliver for having sent her here without Flynn and when her uncertain emotions of the leader of Brooklyn ran so high and untamed. Yet, mostly she hated herself. Hated herself for the utter wreck she had become. Hated herself because she was in a forced cocoon between the lifestyles of Angel Haddox and Helena Haddox. Hated herself because she could not, feared too much to take the step and plunge into one life. Hated herself because she hated who she had become; because she had gone blindly for the past six years under her brother's command and left behind every shard of Helena Haddox that she had known. Now, when she wanted to return to that time, it was impossible.  
  
She hated herself because she was now and will always be Angel Haddox, assassin to Oliver Haddox and living in squalor and death in Midtown. Because Helena Haddox had died long ago, whenever Oliver had blown her parents' brains in and first handed her the revolver. Had died whenever she had claimed her first victim.  
  
The tears streamed down her cheeks freely now as she stared into Night's darkened face. The fury boiled over in her nether-regions, shooting with the greatest magnitude up her body, up her throat and out of her mouth in the form of a grand scream. As this release came, she involuntarily twisted the revolver upside down in her hands and pulled her arms back.  
  
Night's wild laughter still filling her ears, with a great force she smashed the base of the weapon into his face. The laughter subsided abruptly, immediately. Angel stepped back, lowering the gun in front of her as consciousness slipped from Night and he pitched forward to the cobblestones.  
  
She gave his body a shove with the tip of her shoe. He rolled over, the hood leaving his face visible. She had connected the base with his left temple, and blood gushed freely from the wound. Straightening, she cast her gaze over her shoulder at the lodging house. She stepped back and released a sob, dropping her weapon and clasping a palm to her mouth. She regarded the bloody mess that was his face, hot tears falling onto his face and cloak. She shook him. "Night? Night? Wake up, Night. This isn't funny."

She felt the cold, sickening fear manifest in her belly. It took a hold of her insides and clenched them together like a vise. The name was on the tip of her tongue, yet she could not say it.

Oliver. Oliver. Oliver.

She was his sister, yet Night was his best friend (friend in the most twisted, mutated form possible.) She shook his body again. He remained like a sack of potatoes. Hot, red anger began to replace the fear and she shook him harshly. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" she spat, quickly rising to her feet. She issued his body a swift kick before looking over her shoulder.

The fog was nearly all but extinguished and the sun would disappear beyond the west horizon in only a few hours. Angel turned, furiously brushing the tips of her fingers under her eyes to rid herself of the tears. She began striding towards the looming lodging house, when a thought crossed her mind.  
  
Cursing repeatedly under her breath, she spun about once more and returned to Night's sprawled body. She could not leave him in the open for fear that the fog would be gone in a time span of half an hour at most and the newsies notice him, thus handing away her disguise on a golden platter.  
  
With an exasperated sigh, she nudged the body with her feet into a nearby copse of bushes, successfully concealing him. She reckoned that she had given Night a pretty nasty blow to the head and he should remain unconscious for at least a few hours.  
  
Discerning that the task was complete, she turned and faced the lodging house. Brushing away the last remnants of tears, Angel studiously made sure that her hood was pulled over her head and concealed her thoroughly enough.  
  
She strode forward, her hands clasping the hood together, and her eyes never leaving the leader's window, all the while asking herself how in the name of Jesus Christ Almighty she was going to pull this off. 


	11. Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE  
  
It was quite baffling to Angel, as she approached the Brooklyn lodging house cloaked and hooded, how dull and commonplace the structure resembled in the daylight.  
  
It had been Conlon that single-handedly was responsible for the rise of Brooklyn, like the resurrection of a guided Phoenix from the ashes. For a district so instilled with respect and fear, their cantonment was surely not terror inducing. It was an antediluvian youth hostile run by a one old man McDonald who in the genesis of the building had allowed just any newsie to take up residence for only two pennies a night.  
  
However, when the fearless leader came along, he laid out his priorities to old man McDonald and the Brooklyn lodging house was now quite restrictive of who was allowed to haunt inside its walls. Especially now in the midst of the broken truce with Midtown, Conlon had taken extra precautions and had become extra wary. All he needed was one of Oliver's assassins posing as a Brooklyn newsie and attaining a bunk only to shoot his assigned victim from inside the walls (it had been tried without success.)  
  
At least, that's the tale that Angel had been told. She herself had only been inside the structure twice, once when the Armageddon had taken place- the massive rumble where Midtown invaded Brooklyn twain years back-and the time when she had straddled Conlon himself.  
  
Angel shivered at the memory. She had never before experienced emotions that wild, that impassioned, that unbridled from another human being before. She had almost convinced herself that the exchange had never taken place, though the bewildering appearance by him in her room had just reinforced her strong, unsure notions of him.  
  
She halted, a thatch of waning mist swirling round her. Involuntarily, she gulped, her clammy grip tightening on the revolver at her side. Her wide eyes stared upwards, regarding the foreboding, looming lodging house. Her fingers absentmindedly fondled the trigger, as though preparing to cock it.  
  
The structure rendered her breathless, and she could not help but feel a cold flicker of fear within her heart. She still hadn't forgotten that she was a Midtown native in the presence of the Brooklyn headquarters.  
  
Suddenly, a flash of panic swept over her. She wondered if it was a rash judgment to have left Night alone and unconscious. She of course would not have him any other way, save dead, though if she were to be espied or caught and captured by the enemy he could always come to her aid.  
  
The doubt she was experiencing cracked as a grim smile came to her lips. Nero Night, assist anyone but his own self? Angel shook her head; it was not very likely. It was best that he was laying in the copse of bushes. The thought brought a broad smile to her lips as she pulled the hood tighter around her head, shadowing her features.  
  
She turned her attention to her surroundings once more. She stood a few paces from the warped steps that led to the porch on the front façade of the lodging house. Her memories strayed to the night when she had seduced Flick and Charley Cicatrice to their deaths. An intoxicated Flick had grabbed her ankle on the very steps she regarded now. The very porch that had once been filled with wild, drunken laughter, makeshift poker games, and abrupt lovemaking now was deserted and empty, save the thin vapors that occupied it.  
  
She elicited a dejected sigh as her eyes wandered upwards to the window that was Conlon's room. At the time when she stated to Night confidently that the meeting of the two districts was being held there, it had only been a string of false airs. She had no idea in hell where the conference was being held—or even if there was one at all. Oliver had most likely sent them on one of his bullshit wild goose chases again simply out of utter boredom. Though, she deduced that she had to start somewhere, and Conlon's room was better than nothing.  
  
A warm wind slicing through the air and swirling around the ankles of her tailored-slacks, she wrapped the cloak tighter about her and kept her head low. Keeping to the side of the lodging house, she flirted around the thick copse of bushes that littered the corner and rounded the edge. Stopping suddenly, she raised her eyes to find that she was under the second-story window of Conlon's room.  
  
Cursing silently under her breath, Angel surveyed the splintered wooden boards covered in creeping ivy that made up the left wall of the lodging house. She had foolishly thought that there would perhaps be a fire escape of some sorts as there had been at the Manhattan lodging house. There, she had been to scale the accessible flight of stairs and enter the bunkroom like a shadow, slitting her intended victim's throat as he had slept.  
  
The Fates had not been on her side on this sojourn. Now, she was going to have to do the near impossible: enter the lodging house intrinsically and discern where the meeting was in order.  
  
An utterance from the previous time she and Flynn had trekked to Brooklyn entered her mind, and propelled an ironic laugh to escape her lips.  
  
He's going to get us all killed in the end.  
  
She had of course been complaining to Flynn of her kin, yet now the words seemed to relate more to her present plight than they had before. She regarded the window and shook her head. Sometimes she fathomed if Oliver did not just attain his kicks at sending her off on impossible tasks.  
  
On suicide missions.  
  
An exhausted sigh issued from her lips as she brought the back of her hand to her brow, wiping away dew from the fog that clung to her flesh. Though, there was no way between heaven and hell that she could just waltz on back to Midtown with out at least attempting to gather any information. The Lyners would be there, and Oliver would not wish to disappoint them, most notably Rylie who had a sadistic nature to rival that of her brother's.  
  
Exhaling darkly once more, she pirouetted slightly on her toes so that she faced the opposite direction. Striding forward and keeping close to the building, she gathered the dark material of her cloak about her. Her head down, while staring at fall in length of shadows, she could infer that the sun was setting and soon it would be dusk.  
  
Gulliver's Inn. In the Bronx. We shall meet at dusk. Bring no more than ten. Don't bring any weapons, you will be unarmed at the door. There, we will discuss the preparations for our little tea party.  
  
We shall meet at dusk. Meet at dusk.  
  
Oliver's words haunted her as she took a soft left, bringing her once more to the front of the lodging house. Time was slipping through her fingers like sand. If she was to garner any information at all she need hurry.  
  
Her lips pursed in determination and the lines of her face hard, Angel turned and grasped the splintered railing of the porch. With a strangled grunt, she pushed herself off her feet and in one graceful motion swung her legs over the railing. She landed in a crouched position, as silent as a cat. In the process of the flight, her hood had pushed back some, leaving wisps of her pale hair to glow like burnished gold in the last remnants of the dying sun.  
  
Her senses acute and sharpened ten fold, she rose slowly, brushing back the unbound hair and pulling up her hood once more. Her head jerking about, when she descried that there was no one about, she slowly crept forward towards the smeared, cobwebbed-laced window that looked into the parlor. She neared the slovenly pane of glass and sank to her haunches so that her intense eyes could view inside.  
  
The parlor was vacant and she could observe not a soul. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart thumping loudly in her ears, she stayed paralyzed in the position for a good minute or so, just as though when she entered the threshold she would not be ambushed.  
  
When she finally felt satisfied enough, she rose to her feet and skirted to the doorway, nudging the door opened with a sway of her hips. The door opened with a squeak as though it was being diabolically murdered and Angel switched her position to the other side of the doorway so that she could glance inside the crack that the opening had produced. All she could view were the shadowed stairs that lead to the second floor smattered with thin beams of sunlight. Placing her palm on the thick plank of wood, she glanced warily over her shoulder once more to calm her jittery nerves. Reassuring herself, she turned her attention back to the door and carefully pushed on it so that it would not produce any sounds that would give her away.  
  
The door swung silently, slowly inward to reveal the parlor of the lodging house. Angel stepped into the threshold, her palm still on the door and her eyes taking note of the surroundings. The parlor remained empty, a far cry from the intoxicated, blissful sonority that had been predominant in the air at the grand party that Conlon had thrown. The warped table that had been the center of the poker game sat desolate, coated in a thin layer of dust. The band and their melodious music had long since disappeared, as had the glitter-shot beer bottles and drums of booze. Shadows had settled into the room, save for the dimming rays of light that lazily entered the parlor from a trio of windows on the left wall.  
  
Angel took a few steps forward, her hand leaving the door as she stepped into the room, her eyes still darting about in awe. The silence was so thick that she could have sliced effortlessly through it with the blade that she had sheathed and bound to her leg. If she hadn't been a denizen to Brooklyn then she would have never have fathomed that Spot Conlon called this his home. All that haunted the room now were fantastic ghosts of the wild jollification that had been.  
  
Unknowingly, it struck a chord in her heart. As though the thought were so depressing. Inwardly, Angel hissed at herself for being so sentimental. Gathering herself, she stole over to the flight of stairs. She purposely crept as silently as she could, as though not to elicit a squeak from one of the stairs until she halted on the median stair, engulfed in a patch of darkness. Planting her feet on a step, she curled her arms on an upper one until she was stretched out on the stairs, her ears perked for any cacophony.  
  
She listened intensely, until she picked up a dull buzz of commotion on the second floor. She rose once more and took the rest of the steps in a deathlike silence, her eyes and ears wide opened. As she reached the terminus of the stairs, she straightened and flattened her back against the right wall so that she could peer into the dim hallway. She looked to her right first; her heart beat drumming resonantly in her ears. Radiating from the direction, she could determine the subtle sounds of conversation. A shallow light glowed from the end of the hallway.  
  
She inhaled in a sharp breath, yet realized that her breath already had already been caught in her throat. She released a slight cough and immediately brought a hand over her mouth, pressing her rigid back to the wall, the polished banister digging into her lumbar. She dare maneuver her head to that she could peer into the darkened hallway once more at the light. The shallow beam flickered for a moment as she regarded it.  
  
The beam of light that had illuminated his room spilled into the hallway.  
  
Involuntary shivers traced down her backbone in remembrance of his quarters. Perhaps she had been correct in the notion that the meeting of the two leaders was being held in the room.  
  
Her pulse speeding and her respiration incrementing steeply, she flushed as she stepped off the stairs and into the dimly lit hallway. She pried her eyes from the light for a brief second to cast her glance over her shoulder. Detecting that she was protected, she began to pad softly, deliberately towards the light as it beckoned to her like a fiery siren. As she neared Conlon's room, she could discern that the door was swung inward and that the kerosene light that was positioned on the vanity or desk or whatever it had been was throwing the dim glow into the hallway.  
  
Pressing her back against the left wall, the wall that the room was situated on, she silently sidestepped her way towards the chambers. A diluted noise resonated from the room, and her flesh crawled with an incurable itch to peer her head inside and catch what the leaders were bantering of.  
  
Yet, over the audible thudding of her heart, she heard the faint fall of footsteps down the hallway.  
  
Step...step...tap.  
  
Her breath bated painfully in her trachea as her pulse increased rapidly. A wave of panic washed over her, dousing her, so that she abruptly halted and snapped her head to the right to glance down the hallway. With the jolting motion, her hood had fallen back and wild wisps of hair fell unbound from the black ribbon, glimmering vaguely in the light at the end of the hall.  
  
Her eyes engorged in their sockets she immediately froze as though a frigid liquid had been induced into her veins, chilling her blood to ice. Her chest heaved painfully as she heard the strange fall of footsteps once more.  
  
Step...step...tap.  
  
A more upbeat fall of feet could be heard in convergence with the unusual steps.  
  
And then Angel heard the voices. It was though they were a haunting reminder of when Conlon had found her hidden behind his trunk, for now she heard the same exact tones. The voice of passion and the voice of reason. The impassioned voiced reverberated down the corridor to her ears and she closed her eyes as the words played in her ear canal. She allowed the exquisite sensation of heat to overwhelm her as Conlon's voice-there's still time--found her welcoming ears. The other, lower voice she recognized of that of Whitie Wilson, Conlon's right hand man, as was Night to her brother.  
  
All sense of mobility was brutally purloined from Angel as the reverie shattered, the delicious warmth dissipating and leaving in its place an icy mortal fear. She willed her legs to move; yet, they were transfixed to the splintered floorboards at her feet. It was as though her raging mind were severed from her limbs.  
  
Her breath becoming labored, she sharply turned her head in the direction of Conlon and Wilson. They had emerged from a room at the opposite end of the hallway, engaged in a heated conversation, only to halt suddenly in a patch of shadows, oblivious to all but each other.  
  
Her mind temporarily paralyzed, she regarded the pair of silhouettes that were dimly bathed in light. Conlon had his back leaning on the wall, his right hand clutching what appeared to be a cane. He was silent as Wilson stood before him, his voice calmed and hushed as his arm made extravagant gestures in the air.  
  
As Angel averted her sight from them, her mind finally cleared again. With a choked sob of fear, she pushed herself off the wall and dashed across the corridor and into the first available room situated before her. She entered the threshold, a sigh of relief overwhelming her. She bent, pushing her hood back with one careless swipe to run her hands through her tangles of sweaty hair.  
  
As she remained in the doubled-over position, she heard the resume of the footsteps as they neared. With a gasp, she straightened and quickly panned her surroundings. She was situated in a darkened room that appeared desolate and abandoned. It was furnished without any windows, allowing shadows dominate. There were only a few warped wooden cartons in myriad stages of decomposition wrought with glistening cobwebs scattered about.  
  
"I told you, Whitie, you'd have to be a fucking idiot to go to this damn council without any weapons." Conlon's voice was alive with a passionate fire as he and Wilson neared.  
  
Angel quickly turned over her shoulder to glance into the hallway. The opened threshold of Conlon's room was partially visible from the room she took refuge in. Her curiosity immediately overtook her as she crouched low and sidled to behind the opened door. Positioning herself correctly, she could see freely from the crack between the door and the wall where the portal was hinged. Her eyes quickly surveyed the inhabitants of Conlon's room, taking exquisite note if she was to recite it to her brother and his party at the Hideaway.  
  
The room was dimmed; save for the fire from the kerosene lamp that highlighted the features of those that she could view. Sitting on the edge of the warped vanity she could make out the definite form of the leader of Manhattan. She could positively identify Kelly from the idiotic hell-fire red bandanna and the foolish cowboy hat down his back that was anchored by a string around the neck. His lifeless features channeling that of a statue's, he kept fidgeting, perhaps unknowing to keep his arms crossed over his chest or drum his fingers atop the vanity.  
  
The only other she could recognize was that damn gambler, though she could not recall his name. He was positioned next to Kelly, sitting on the vanity with a leg tucked under him and the other dangling listlessly off the edge. A fuming cigar was positioned between his lips and he lazily tossed a deck of cards between his hands.  
  
Her gaze on the gambler was shattered whenever Conlon strode furiously in front of the crack, causing her to gasp. The strange fall of his steps was attributed to the gleaming cane that he handled in his right hand. When Wilson had crossed in front of her, Angel bit the tip of her tongue between her lips in determination and silently rearranged herself so she could have a better view.  
  
An abrupt hush fell across the room when Conlon entered, replacing the dull murmurs that had been predominant. Conlon positioned himself before Kelly. His lanky form held erect and his face emotionless, his hand rested on the cane in front of him while the kerosene lamp caused his hair to glow while his visage remained shadowed.  
  
There was a heavy silence while both leaders regarded each other. Kelly took leave from leaning on the vanity as he straightened.  
  
The Brooklyn leader broke the silence. "We're taking weapons."  
  
Angel's head cocked in wonderment at the reaction this simple statement brought. A large assortment of groans and yells blended into one angry murmur that filled the still air. In the reflection of the fire, Kelly's face twisted into disgust as he threw his arms over his head. The gambler had taken the cigar out of his mouth and was holding his arms outstretched. His mouth moved quickly, his features contorted into disbelief and anger.  
  
Throughout this outburst, Conlon's collected disposition never once broke. He still stood straight, proud, and motionless with his head held high.  
  
Kelly's voice strangled with utter infuriation rose over the cacophony. "Taking weapons? Your-you're taking weapons?" He placed his hands to his face and then ran them through his dull brown hair as he began to pace before Conlon. He suddenly halted and piercingly stared into the cool eyes of his ally. "Spot, tell me you're kidding me, just tell me you're kidding me." His voice lost its anger, and now was soft, as though he did not wish to accept Conlon's words.  
  
Conlon only tilted his head slightly, his lower body never moving even a muscle. "I'm not kidding you."  
  
A large roar of voices arose at his words, as a string of curses issued from Kelly's lips. The Manhattan leader raised a pointed index finger towards Conlon. "You don't know what the hell you're doing, Spot. If Haddox told you not to bring any weapons, then you shouldn't bring any weapons--"  
  
"But Oliver will have weapons." The low, timid of voice of Wilson interrupted Kelly, causing Angel's gaze to flicker to him. She had nearly forgotten of him, standing in the doorway. Kelly cast his burning glare from Wilson to Conlon.  
  
"I really don't give a shit if Haddox will have weapons. Of course he will have weapons! But do you even want to dare mess with him? If he says that you'll be searched at the door then he means you'll be searched at the door no if, ands or buts!" His impassioned voice died away and he stepped closer to Conlon so that their faces were mere inches apart. Angel regarded their intense profiles illuminated by the blaze. Conlon's head was still held high and proud, never have moved. Kelly's brow was slicked with sweat and the muscles in his face trembled. She had to strain to hear his words for his voice had fallen to such a deathly whisper.  
  
"Spot, you know I've been your best friend through thick and thin and you know that I'd give my life for yours in a minute. But there are somethings that I just won't do. And fucking with Oliver Haddox is one of them.  
  
"He's like a cobra waiting to strike. If you bring weapons he'll search you and find them and blow your head off for bringing them. You know that damned sister of his will shoot your brains out in a heartbeat. They're ruthless, Spot. Absolutely ruthless.  
  
"You made Brooklyn what it is today by using that head that is on your shoulders, but on decisions like this I sometimes fail to see how. I'm a pretty willing guy, Spot, but I also have to look out for my boys. That's what a leader does. And I can't do this, won't do this if you bring weapons."  
  
A deafening silence hung over the air like a suffocating shroud. Angel could physically feel the awesomely intense electricity crackle between the two leaders as she sat on edge for a reaction.  
  
Conlon finally responded. His electric eyes never leaving Kelly's, his hand went to his chest and grasp firmly what seemed to be a key. She watched as he twisted it anxiously before her eyes returned to his cold face.  
  
"I, too, Sullivan, am a leader. Don't forget where you are. You're in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. What I say goes. You speak of insubordination."  
  
Angel felt her pulse begin to race, whether it was with lust or a feeling of sickness, as she watched the most powerful district alliance, including Midtown and Queens, crumble before her very eyes.  
  
Her eyes never left the two leaders as an overpowering silence filled the lodging house. She would have bet her immortal soul that very instant that every breath in the small, cramped room had been caught painfully in each and every throat as all eyes fell to the two.  
  
As quickly as a match ignites into fire, so did Kelly. His face grew livid as his features twisted into that of absolute repulsion. "Insubordination? I speak of insubordination? Jesus Christ, Spot, that's an awfully big word for you to use. When did you find time to hawk the dictionary? Was it while you were fishing your boys like goddamn fish out of the water? Oh, wait, that's right. With all this stress you haven't been laid in over a month, so maybe you found the time then."  
  
A deafening hush fell over the room and Angel quickly flicked her gaze to Conlon. His frigid, indifferent demeanor had all but been shattered. His pale skin had erupted into a violent shade of crimson and his eyes glittered with hate like blue diamonds set on fire. His whole carriage trembled outright as his hand gripped the head of the cane so tightly it turned white. "Who are you? Manhattan. Fucking Manhattan. Who are we? Brooklyn. Mother whoring Brooklyn! What in the name of Christ was I thinking when I asked you to help me? Aren't you always the pansy that comes running to me when the little Delancey's start picking on you? So why in the name of God would I need your help? You're nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cowboy Jack Kelly and his band of girls. Why the hell do you think I am named the goddamn Fearless Leader of Brooklyn! Because I'm fearless! I don't need you! So take your girls and get out of my room, you son of a bitch. I don't need you. I don't need you!"  
  
Even from being situated from across the hall, Angel could still pristinely distinguish the absolute loathing and malevolency that coursed through Kelly. His face burnt a deep red as he extended a trembling index finger towards Conlon. "I hope you still say that...I hope you say that Conlon when Haddox finds your weapons and blows your fucking brains out. I hope you say that! I hope you say that Spot because you're so fucking blinded by pride that you can't even what's right in front of you. It's a trap, Spot. A big goddamn trap and that bastard is just gonna sit back and smirk when you disobey him. If you don't bring weapons then at least you can have a chance to have your final vengeance against him in a real out and out war and not die at his mercy tonight--"  
  
"I thought I told you to leave!" Conlon hissed with an ample amount of venom in his shaking voice.  
  
Kelly lowered his hand lax to his side. Angel shifted her weight some so she had a more proper view of them. They had shifted somewhat in the midst of the argument and now they stood near the warped desk, the light of the kerosene lamp highlighting the creases of hate in their faces tenfold. The light reflected off of their eyes, causing them to glitter violently. They hauntingly resembled deadly cobras, prepared to strike for the final time.  
  
Kelly shook his head. "Don't worry, Spot don't worry. When I walk out of here it's over. But hell, I'll come to you're funeral and read a nice speech about what a stupid, proud son of a bitch you were."  
  
With that, Kelly strode furiously to the door. As he exited the threshold, Conlon turned towards the door and screamed after him, "Fuck you!"  
  
Angel pulled away from the crack some as Kelly stalked past her down the hallway, his shoes heavy against the antediluvian floorboards. After Kelly had passed, she quickly rose to her knees again and inched closer towards the crack. She peered out at Conlon who was still looking towards the open door. His face was livid and his chest heaved heavily.  
  
When the sound of the door to the lodging house slammed shut in one final time, the sound reverberated throughout the deadly silent room, a silence that seemed to consume the entire surroundings. As soon as the sound diminished, Conlon then abruptly straightened and panned the paralyzed newsies who still inhabited the room. His gaze roaming over them, their lingering appearance just seemed to fuel his intense rage more. "What are you still doing here?" he howled. "I thought I commanded you to leave along with your goddamn leader!"  
  
The newsies all exchanged glances before the apparent Manhattan rose to their feet and filed past Conlon. Some were more expedient on their feet than others, not meeting his wrathful gaze as they hurried into the hallway with fear. Yet others were slow, and even dare to halt before Conlon for a brief second, their faces wrought with absolute hate, as the gambler did.  
  
The gambler was the last to leave and had bestowed upon Conlon the most scathing look. When the billows of smoke that he had left in his wake dissipated, the Brooklyn leader then turned once more to the newsies that remained--his newsies.  
  
"Out. Get the hell out now." The hate in his inflection had slightly calmed and his words were more of a weary command. They must have known when to tempt their leader and when not to, for simultaneously they rose to their feet and quickly filed out of his quarters, avoiding his gaze.  
  
When the last one had left his presence, Conlon elicited an utterly exhausted sigh and placed his hands to his face. The color of his flesh immediately waned and his ridged posture immediately softened as his shoulders rounded. He took a few paces towards the bunk beds; his face still covered with his hands and sat on the edge of the lower bed. He bent forward, placing his head between his legs. One hand remaining on his face, the other found its way through his hair.  
  
It was an exquisite temper that he possessed. It was an erratic one. When it came upon him it consumed him like the most powerful fire. Yet, when it left, it left an exhausted human being forced to deal with the repercussions of a few seconds of passion.  
  
Angel regarded him as she slowly rose to her feet. Just a few moments ago he had appeared so utterly fearsome and yet now he looked so utterly pathetic and...mortal.  
  
A slight creak turned her attention away from Conlon to the hallway before her where Wilson stood poking his head in the doorway, regarding his friend and shaking his head sadly. Conlon did not notice his presence for his posture still did not change. He only ran both hands through his hair now, polishing it back.  
  
Wilson took a step forward so that he entered the room that only a moment before he had been excommunicated from. His heavy boots caused the wooden floorboards to creak under his weight and caught Conlon's attention for he raised his head sharply.  
  
Wilson's carriage was erect and rigid, as though he expected yet another lashing from his superior. Yet, Conlon's gaze was frighteningly void of any hardness whatsoever. The eyes that he glanced at Wilson with where the ones that only the most experienced of men possessed, men who had survived entire lifetimes of trials and tribulations. A nineteen-year-old boy should not have possessed eyes that worn and lifeless.  
  
A thin smile flickered upon Conlon's lips before it fell and his face once more found his hands. Wilson stepped forward cautiously, shifting his weight from one foot to another, causing the boards under him to moan. "Uh, Spot," he began, his voice raw and unsure.  
  
Conlon did not reply, only twined his fingers through his dirty blonde hair.  
  
Wilson cleared his throat cautiously. "Spot, I just want you to know that I will always be here for you. You know, you are my best friend and I will stick by you in whatever decision you decide. And I know it will be the best one."

Conlon raised his head, his piercing eyes focused on Wilson. His skin was starkly pale. A glimmer of a smile flickered upon his lips for a moment. "Thanks, Whitie. Thanks."

Wilson ducked his head and ran a hand through his awry shock of white hair, a bashful grin crossing his face. A slight red stain appeared on the apples of his cheeks. "Anytime, Spot."

Wilson motioned awkwardly, before turning slowly and exiting the doorway. Angel had been leaning over so far, peering between the crack in the door and so engaged in the scene that had unfolded that Wilson's sudden movement towards her took her completely off guard. She felt her knees giving out from under her and the heinous notion crossed her mind (morbidly she knew she was going to be caught and reflected upon it just as those that she had pointed a gun to, as their entire lives raced across their minds) even before she fell. She landed backwards, roughly falling on her hindquarters and producing an audible slam. The floorboards wailed and dust particles took flight into the air. Conlon and Wilson immediately snapped their heads in the direction.

Wilson suddenly grew rigid, his head bent over his shoulder. "What was that?" he asked.

Conlon did not reply. His eyes were intensely trained on the closed door adjacent from his bedroom. He slowly rose to his feet, his blue eyes glittering. He reached in a back pocket and produced a switchblade. It extended in a whisper. He twisted it and caught the light. "I don't know," he said softly, creeping towards the open door way and past Wilson.

Angel was regaining herself and her head cleared just in time to see the Brooklyn leader stalking towards her like a beautiful lion hunting its prey. Her vision focused just as the door was met with a sonorous battery, causing the decrepit plank of wood to shutter and cave in with great ease. She heard a scream, a high shrill, scream, and found that it was she herself that had issued such a helpless cry or mortal terror.

Conlon appeared before her, the warm light bathing him from behind, filling the crevices of his tensed body, burnishing his hair, and shining his blade. She reacted on primordial instinct; thrusting herself up and blindly grabbing for her revolver. Her cloak hindered her; with the many folds, she found it difficult to discern the weapon. The utter panic overwhelmed her and constricted her entire body. She could not breathe.

He yelled—she couldn't understand what for it was only the bells of mortal (immortal) terror that she felt ringing loudly in her ears. Wilson's astonished face appeared in the doorway behind Conlon. Her fingers fished and wriggled and she could feel the base of her precious revolver. She only had to unsheathe it and--

"Her fucking gun!" Conlon hollered, launching his body into the darkened room. She released a squeal of surprise as he landed roughly on her body. His bent knee struck her in the abdomen and her breath was vacuumed away and the pain—the agonizing pain—now vacated her. Her fingers grew lax on the base of the gun and her arm fell to her side—her last chance of hope.

The pain consumed her and she closed her eyes, viewing nothing but swirls of black—black pain. She inhaled, a wheeze, but found it torturous and impossible. Her head lolled back on the dusty floor—her mind spinning in the blackness.

"Jesus Fucking Christ, Spot! That's Angel Haddox! What the fuck is she doing here?" she heard a hoarse voice cry (she thought it was Wilson's.)

Angel felt the profound weight slowly being removed from her chest and she breathed in deeply, as though she had never taken a breath of life in all of her years of being. An arm snaked around her waist, pulling her to her feet. Fingers sharply lifted her chin and she felt a sharp prick against her neck. She knew the sensation all too well: it was the blade of a knife.

"Whitie, under her cloak, in her waist band, get her gun," he commanded. A pair of large hands came and rifled through her cloak, lifting it up. She felt her precious weapon being plucked from her waistband. It was cold against her flesh.

"And strapped to her right leg, the knife. Get the knife."

The cuff of her trousers rose and the hands patted her calf, finding the sheath and removing the switch. "Okay, got 'em both, Spot. What are you going to do?"

Angel felt the sickness in her stomach well and she could not stand it any longer. She released a moan and collapsed, but a strong hand held her steady. She opened her eyes and looked up.

He looked down at her, regarded her. The light bathed him, doused him, set a golden fire to his hair that was askew and to his stark white skin and flaming cheeks. But his eyes, his eyes were not the ones she had seen last night—the eyes of a downtrodden, defeated leader who had lost his comrades in battle. No, the blue diamonds sparkled with a fantastically intense blaze of arrogance and pride. He may not have won the war, but for now he had won the battle. He was the Fearless Leader of Brooklyn.

She closed her eyes and fell lax against him, as though every bone in her body had dissipated. She elicited a mournful groan and turned her head away.

His smile only grew. He pushed her chin up roughly with his palm and settled his blade roughly against her neck as though he might draw blood.

"Here's what you are going to do, Whitie. You are going to go get Jack again. And tell him that we most definitely will need weapons."


	12. Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Angel Haddox sat on the Fearless Leader's bed. For a guy who had supposedly fucked half of New York's female population she thought the furnishings would be a little more carnal knowledge inspiring. Instead, a dilapidated bunk bed supported her weight. The mattress was concave in the center, no doubt from the numerous trysts he had encountered over the years. Her revolver was set point-blank between her eyes.

"So now that you have me Conlon, what are you going to do? Fuck me or kill me?"

Before her, Wilson's hold on the gun faltered due to the lightness of her tone. The hardness in his face dissipated to a look of surprise. Angel looked past him and saw that Conlon's steely gaze hadn't changed. The remark only prompted him to rise off the warped chest he was sitting on and stride across the room. His shoes were hard on the floorboards. He halted behind Whitie, the gleam in his eyes akin to that of a knife. Angel's eyes were too trained on the coy smile that danced on his lips to even realize that he had pounced on her. She released a great gasp of air as his knee smashed into her stomach, sucking the wind from her. As she fell backwards onto the mattress, Conlon harshly positioned his knee in her groin, his hand locking her wrists above her head in a powerful grip. When she regained her breath, she opened her eyes to discover the dagger that she routinely wore strapped to her thigh was brandished before her. As her eyes noticed how blindingly the light played off it, she also realized the first cold slabs of fear overtaking her. Her body broke out into a cold sweat as he lowered his lips to her ear, strands of hair brushing across her cheek. Her gaze never left the memorizing blade, as he spoke at not more than a whisper.

"You think you've outsmarted me this time? Is Oliver at such a loss in Midtown that he has to resort to eavesdropping? No matter what you say, I know your brother won't take the disappearance of his most prized killer lightly. He will pay me nicely for you." He was lightly tracing the blade of the dagger across her cheek. "And to answer your question, Angel, I would let Night fuck you and Oliver kill you, you _worthless Midtown whore_." As a fitting emphasis, he slashed the blade across her face with a growl. Angel released a howl of pain, feeling the flesh sear open and the hot blood begin to trickle down. She wretched under Conlon, her body contorting wildly. She tried desperately to soothe the open wound.

Through her screams, she did not witness the glance exchanged between the two Brooklyn newsboys. She just felt Conlon's weight being released from her. Angel emitted a sigh of relief as she brought her emancipated hands to her gashed cheek, her cupped palms filling with blood. Alas, she was not beset with the horrifying pain for much longer, for the butt of her revolver was brought down heavily to her face. She only felt a sliver of pain as it connected, until she slipped into black oblivion.

She awoke with a jerk, her head snapping back before she actually opened her eyes. The pain consumed her almost at once, shrouding her entire body. She elicited a slight groan as her eyes dazedly began to adjust to the darkened room. She brought a hand to her cheek, yet winced in pain. The bone hadn't been broken, yet a fantastic bruise remained in the revolver's wake. The blood had congealed, although the gash remained uncovered. To Angel, it felt as though her entire face was being ripped opened.

"So she finally awakes."

The voice was low, yet it was enough to awaken her senses. She scanned the darkness for the owner of the voice. "Who is there?" she barely whispered.

In response, she saw the sultry red glow of a match being struck. She watched the flame as a pair of hands cupped around it, encaging it. They fell away, revealing the bright scarlet embers of a cigarette. The embers flickered as the owner of the voice took a long drag, exhaling an invisible puff of smoke. "Probably someone you don't want it to be." The voice was light, almost jovial.

Angel's breathe bated painfully in her throat as her body became rigid with fear. It was a trained response to terror, one that that Brooklyn Leader had smartly forced her to acquire. "What do you want with me?" she inquired in a shaking voice.

There was a pause in the dark, before she heard the squeak of a chair under his weight as he rose. His footsteps were light as they fell across the ancient floorboards of his room. The embers of his cigarette seemed to float across the room as he moved. "Now that's a rhetorical question if I ever heard one." His voice was coming from her left, and she promptly snapped her head in the direction. "What could I possibly want with the Angel of Death herself."

Angel was painfully aware of the intervals of her ragged breathing, as there was a break in his words and a dangerous pause. She inhaled sharply as she felt the barrel of a gun being pressed to her right temple. He was standing only mere inches away from her. She could hear his quick breaths. "To kill you," he intoned simply. "To pull this trigger and let your fucking brains splatter across the wall."

She was paralyzed. Fear clenched at her body. She was at the brink of urinating herself when the gun she felt the gun drop away and Conlon step back. Angel elicited a painful sigh of relief as her body went lax. A flame erupted across the room in a kerosene lamp, illuminating the squalid room with a warm glow. Conlon shook the match and carelessly flicked it aside. He collapsed into a chair (the same chair she had straddled him on, she thought ruefully,) with his shoulders hunched. He raised his eyes to hers. "But I'm not going to do that."

An insane, high-pitched laugh escaped her lips and she dug her fingers into the gashed cheek. "You…you really expect me to believe that?"

He erupted into a slight grin. He knew her eyes were trained on her revolver that he held. "No, not really." He motioned towards the gun. "But then again I don't have the rep as a murderer."

_Murderer. Murderer. Murderer. _He called youa _murderer_. How many people have you shot to death, Hel, you old Angel of Death, you old _murderer_. 10? 20? Does it even really matter now? Cause you know after a certain number the old Guy in the Sky up there loses count and loses patience and will just sent your ass straight to Hell. Just like out of the Inferno, Hel. Just like out of your dreams. Old Conlon here himself will have the honor of blowing apart your pretty head with your own bitch revolver again, and again, and again. What you reap is what you sew, isn't that how that old saying goes?

"So now you have me, Conlon, you ain't gonna get scared are you? You ain't scared of a girl are you? Is the only way you can be in the same room with me with my own gun pointed at me?" she cried shrilly.

His comment sliced her to the core. "You're not a girl. You're a monster."

Angel Haddox, aka the Angel of Death, was rarely ever at lose for words, especially when she made some last, snide remark to a newsie before she murdered him. But now, with Conlon, she could barely comprehend what to say. "If I am such a monster, then why don't you kill me right here, right now? Splatter my brains across the wall. No more Angel of Death."

Conlon flashed her a winsome look before releasing a hearty laugh. He rose from the chair. "Do you really think I'm that goddamned stupid, Haddox? I ain't the Leader of Brooklyn for anything." He strode across the room towards her and, with outstretched arms, leveled the revolver at her face. "Let's say I do kill you. Would it make a lot of people very happy? Sure. But will it make Oliver very happy? He'll come to Brooklyn with all his goons and kill even more of my boys all cause I did you a favor and killed your ass. Besides, Haddox, you're worth more alive than you are dead."

She stared up at him past the gun pointed at her, hatred burning in her eyes. "What, Conlon, you want to break me in on your bed or something?"

He released a laugh, his blue eyes shining gleefully. "Don't flatter yourself there, Haddox. I figure I could use you as sort of a spy."

Angel laughed incredulously at him. "A spy? A spy! What a wonderful idea. Except if you do let me out of here, what the hell is making me keep my promise to you? You gonna have one of your newsies always following me?"

"No, Haddox, I thought that you might want to do something good I your life for once."

Because I can see it. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it in your eyes today. I saw fear in your eyes. You're not one of them. You want more. But your scared shitless. Scared shitless. You want to die in this life you created for yourself, you don't know who the hell you've become. But you don't die because you think somehow you can always go back to the past that the future will be brighter. You bitch, you fucking murderous bitch, you are the same as me.

She felt her breathing begin to convulse and she lowered her head, not allowing him the pleasure glimpsing her unshed tears. She wanted to tell him that she did not love her brother, did not know the last time she had ever even felt the emotion. That the only way she and her brother were connected was through the blood of those she had killed joyfully for him. She was tired. She was weary. She felt like a husk of a human being, empty, nothing inside. She wanted to die, but she was too afraid to commit suicide. That she wished he had killed her already. Of how much she wished she were just a regular girl who had grown-up in Brooklyn whom Conlon had seduced. She would have a cry, he would listen to her problems, and then they would make good use of the mattress.

But she was not just a regular girl growing up in Brooklyn. She was the Angel of Death. Oliver had made sure of that after he murdered their parents one moonless night and proclaimed to her that they were finally free.

She raised her head, eyes still glassy, and murmured, "What do you want me to do?" Yet she was jolted to find Conlon had taken a seat on the mattress beside him. His hands clutched her gun upon his lap and he stared at it. She was struck again of how incredibly handsome he was, with the light playing off his hair that resembled burnished gold. She was tired, and he had said words she had understood, and she wished she could collapse against him with sleep. But then she remembered her place. And who they were.

Conlon raised his eyes and locked her gaze. They were solemn, yet nonetheless pierced her soul. Wordlessly, he placed the revolver in her lap. It took her a moment to process the gesture, and when she finally grasped it, she stared at him, thunderstruck. She was still staring as he rose to his feet and slowly padded across the room, hands deep in his pockets. As he placed his hand on the doorknob and prepared to open it, he turned over his shoulder. "To answer the question you asked before truthfully, I don't think I would let it be Night." Sitting dumbfounded, Angel thought she detected the faint trace of a smile on his lips, before he slipped out of the room.

Except if you do let me out of here, what the hell is making me keep my promise to you?

He did not have to answer her question. Angel knew. Spot Conlon already had her.

Regaining her composure, Angel tucked the revolver into the band of her trousers, and quickly stole out of the room and into the blackened night. She knew she had made a deal for her soul with Satan, an act that if discovered could be treason to Midtown and punishable by death.

Angel Haddox, though, couldn't give a damn.

A/N: It's been a few years since I have updated this story. As some may notice, a few of the chapters I had originally posted are gone. I had taken them down to some revisions, and before I could put them back up, my computer crashed and I lost my original files. So, I have to write from scratch again. I have had terrible writer's block on this story for years, and I think I have come up with an ending that satisfies me, so the story may veer in a different direction than the first, but will incorporate the same elements. Reviews are appreciated as always. Thanks.


	13. Chapter Eleven

A/N: What a long an complicated journey I have had with this story. I really haven't worked on it in more than four years because in that time I went away to college and graduated. But, it's Christmas and I have some down time and I want to see if I can finish it once and for all. I retooled this chapter some, to make it longer and better, and to lead into to Chapter Twelve which is almost done…so look for it around Saturday. As always, reviews are always welcome.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"So I see you came after all, Haddox."

Angel raised her eyes for a moment as she eased herself through the shattered pane of glass. He was sitting in solitude on a dusty crate, legs slightly spread, a cigarette lazily hanging from his lips. His blue-checkered shirt created a sense of chaos with those stupid goddamned pink suspenders he always seemed to wear. He brushed the hair from his eyes to stare at her.

She broke the glance as she gently swung her left leg over the sill, careful to avoid the haphazard shards of remaining glass. With a slight groan, she thrust herself forward and landed on the hard concrete floor on her haunches, her weight creating a thud that echoed through the abandoned building. She rose slowly, taking in her surroundings warily, before her eyes fell to him, surveying him. From her vantage, he appeared unarmed.

She stared at him deliberately, about fifteen feet away from where he sat, her eyes hard, "So what do you want, Conlon?"

He wore a slight smile and motioned with his head towards her. "Ditch the weapon and I'll tell you." Angel glanced down at the black revolver tucked within her waistband. She released a disgusted cry. "Do you really think I am that insane?" She gestured to the badly stitched wound that rode her cheek. Had she been able to read, she would have claimed she looked akin to Frankenstein. That elicited a chuckle from him, his handiwork. He threw his hands up. "I guess that's one you'll just have to chance."

Angel glared at him, coldly, before she grasped the weapon and flung it away, where it landed, the sound reverberating in the muggy darkness. It was a disgustingly hot summer day out. New York had seemed to be having its share of them, and the bright sun looked as though it was in no mood to leave anytime soon. Beads of sweat cascaded down her brow, and she wiped them off futilely with the back of her palm. She had trekked from Midtown this morning to meet the bastard, after offering a great heaping of lies to Flynn who had wanted to go swimming in the river. By now, it was afternoon, and although the sun was lowering, it was still a hot, miserable bitch of a day out. The perspiration caused her clothing to cling uncomfortably to her skin and matted her hair to her head. She fidgeted, hating with a passion the stupid son of a bitch before her who had caused her to miss the cool waters with her friend.

Although, she reminded herself, he could have killed her, and he did not. And she had chosen herself to meet him. "So what the hell do you want?" she called, her voice more high-pitched than she would have liked.

Conlon breathed a great puff of smoke like a dragon. He spat out the cigarette butt and snubbed it with his shoe. "I find it quite impolite to yell. So why don't cha come closer?"

She hesitated, glancing between him and the empty blackness where she had thrown her only weapon. With a prolonged sigh, she trudged over to where he was seated, never losing a hawk-like stare at him in case he decided to produce a weapon. She hunkered down on an old crate that read Harding's Dairy on it. She wanted this to be as brief as possible. She was still on probation with Oliver from last week's mistake.

Conlon reached into his back pocket and produced two cigarettes. "Want a smoke?" She accepted, and placed it between her lips as he stuck a match and lit them. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the rich taste of the nicotine.

"I hear it's been a little quiet over in Midtown."

He was studying her with sharp eyes on an otherwise listless face. She frowned grimly. "Oliver has taken to sending Flynn and Night out."

He cocked a brow. Angel realized she despised how he regarded her so condescendingly. As events had unfolded, Angel realized that it might have been a kinder fate if Conlon had indeed killed her. She had shown up at the war council in the Bronx with a busted face and a staggering, bleeding Nero Night. Oliver had been silent at first, his lips pursed so hard together they turned white as she tried to explain herself. Yet for the life of her, she could not concoct a single lie because the night's events had flustered her to such a degree. So, she stood stammering before her brother. Everything went to hell when Oliver realized not only his sister's huge fuck-up, but that Brooklyn and Manhattan had decided to not arrive fashionably late, but not arrive at all. He exploded, as he was wont to do when the last of his patience was tried, and pummeled the living shit out of her in front of all Midtown and Queens. The only thing that had saved her from death was he not knowing her presence had been sniffed out.

No, the only one who knew anything about _that_ was sitting before her, blowing lazy smoke circles, and eying her to continue. She hated him at that moment almost as she hated herself.

"You are thinking you hate me, don't you?"

His voice shattered her reverie, and she stared at him with eyes wide, wondering how the hell he could have plucked her silent thoughts and say them aloud.

He grinned in response to her reply. "I know you hate me because you think I hold something over you that made you come here. But the only person who forced you to come was you."

She regarded Conlon indignantly. Her features twisted into an expression of disgust. She rose sharply, causing the crate to crash backwards. She was livid, more so because she knew he was right and did not want to believe it. "How dare you think you can read my thoughts? Do you think I came here out of some obligation? Or out of pity that you are such a sorry ass excuse for a leader that you need to ask the enemy for help?" With a flourish, she drew a switch from her back pocket, opening it with a snap of the wrist. Conlon's eyes widened slightly and the smoldering cigarette dangled from his lips. He watched the blade intently. She approached him slowly where he sat on the crate. "Or did you think that because I am just a girl you would seduce me with your legendary charms and screw me to get information? Did you ever think I just came here to kill you once and for all?"

Much to Angel's dismay his look of surprise was that of lazy glee again. He smiled coyly and rose to stand before her, his blue eyes flashing. He exhaled a puff of smoke into her face, and slowly reached behind him and produced a gleaming pistol. It was Angel's turn release a startled gasp as the sight jolted her. "I thought you were unarmed!" she stammered stupidly.

He grinned ferociously, and stepped to her so that they were nearly touching. "Well, I am not the goddamned leader of Brooklyn for nothing. And you still are Midtown." He traced the tip of the gun down her badly stitched cheek, over the protruding black sutures. "I didn't want to do that, but I will if I have to again. I thought about not bringing this, I thought I could read you. But I guess it was a stupid thought. So you go back to Midtown, Haddox, you go back to your brother."

Angel released a disgusted cry, pushed away from him, and threw the switch to the ground. She wanly raised her hands in mock surrender. "Yeah, Conlon, that's right. I am Midtown. I am Oliver Haddox's sister. But just because I'm a girl," she reached behind her to her waistband and produced her revolver, "don't assume I'm stupid." Fluidly, she cocked the trigger and pointed the barrel point blank at his head.

His cheeks flushed red with anger as he eyed the gun. He took a step back from the barrel. Beads of sweat profusely slid down his brow, into his flashing eyes, down his nose and cheeks. He grasped his pistol loosely at his side. . He motioned towards her with his head. "So kill me, Angel, kill me. Put a bullet through my fuckin' head and deliver it on a silver platter to Oliver. He may kill me, but that son-of-a-bitch will never kill Brooklyn. You hear that, Haddox? You can kill me and every single one of my boys, but Brooklyn will still live!" He elicited a repulsed cry and hurled the gun into the hot warehouse. Angel had to duck to avoid being hit. The blood pumped hot and fast like quicksilver in her veins. She gazed at Conlon with wide eyes.

"I thought you were different from your piece-of-shit brother, Haddox. As a leader, I don't think I can take waking up in the morning and seeing my boys floating in the river with a goddamned bullet in their skulls. I thought that maybe if I could get through to you somehow, any way, I could end this fucking ridiculous war between Midtown and Brooklyn that began for reasons I can't even remember anymore." He stepped closer to her. "I thought you were different. I thought there was some part of you that wasn't evil. Looks like I fucked up." His inner eyes glinted wet. He released a cry of self-loathing and lowered his head, stepping away from her.

_Because I can see it. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it in your eyes today. I saw fear in your eyes. You're not one of them. You want more. But you're scared shitless. You want to die in this life you created for yourself, you don't know who the hell you've become. But you don't die because you think somehow you can always go back to the past that the future will be brighter. _

As though a puppeteer had wrested control of her body, there was suddenly a wet, hot sensation trailing down her cheeks. Her windpipe constricted as though a clenched fist had wrought its fury upon it. Her breathing came out in low, gasping wheezes. Her outstretched arm began to tremble violently. His lips twisted into a snarl, Conlon closed the distance between them. He placed a sweaty hand over hers on the grip of the gun, steadying it, and put his forehead to the barrel. "Pull the trigger, Haddox, you kill me. But for my final words let me say that when I am dead Brooklyn will burn Midtown to the fucking ground."

A house built of a deck of cards can be deceiving. Although exquisitely crafted, there is always a fault that is wont to crumble if approached in just the correct way. Angel Haddox was of that. Her psyche had finally imploded upon itself and in her body was housed ten-year-old Helena Haddox before Oliver had murdered their parents. The gun fell to the floor with a clatter that she did not hear. She gazed upon the leader with tired, world-weary eyes. "Tell me why you came to my room that night. Tell me why you didn't kill me. And tell me why you said there is still time."

He was clearly taken aback at her sudden change of demeanor. He searched her face as though to determine if what she asked was a ruse, but his mouth slowly opened and he spoke in a high voice. "Because you can't hide the fear in your eyes. Sometimes it shows through with me, but I've done such a good job becoming the Fearless Leader of Brooklyn, that it usually never does."

She elicited a fatigued whimper that perhaps if she had had any strength remaining in her body could have been at least mustered into something more. Instead her voice was low and void of emotion, her affect flat. "I am tired. I am tired of living in fear every waking moment of my life. I am tired of fearing that the last breath I inhale may be my last." She raised her eyes and took his figure in. He was hunkered, also, before her in that fantastically hot warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn that just the two of them occupied. His blue eyes were wide; his dirty blonde hair matted and burnished gold from random streaks of sunlight that filtered through the broken windows. Drops of perspiration greedily licked at his skin as they rolled off his brow and down his cheeks.

A corner of her mouth turned up into a queer smile. "Life has made me this thing, this assassin to my brother. I have been blinded for many years by his words. I enjoyed the kill. Oh, yes, I achieved a delectable pleasure from seeing my intended victim down the barrel of my gun before me on his knees, begging for his life and pissing his pants in fear." She rose, her voice low. "The only prayer I have is that I could escape the life I live without any fear of retribution. To have my slate wiped clean, I guess you could say. But after you've killed so many, after you've placed the blame on everyone else, the only one to blame in the end is—you. But you, you told me that there is still time. Maybe there is still some time left to get right with the guy in the sky. I don't know. I don't know much, but I do know that there was never a second in my mind that I doubted that I would come back to you. My time may be short yet, but I give you my word that I will help you in any way possible to take down my brother and Midtown once and for all."

Conlon arose slowly to his feet, his countenance laced with incredulity. He opened his mouth to speak; yet Angel silenced him. "Don't feel pity for me. I've accepted my fate, and you've helped me. I've been confused by many things recently, but finally they've become clear. I know what I must do."

She exhaled a great sigh and collapsed upon one of the overturned milk crates. Conlon followed her lead, not commenting on her words, only seating himself cautiously on a crate before her. He fumbled for a cigarette in his trouser pocket and flicked it in her direction. She caught it between two fingers and lit up, taking a deep drag and savoring the calming effect the nicotine had upon her shattered nerves.

"So what kind of shit do you think is going to go down?" Conlon said, a companion cigarette dangling on a lip, breaking the silence. He cupped his hands around his mouth and lit the cigarette with a match. He shook the match's embers to their death before inhaling deeply.

She shrugged matter-of-factly. "I've been, how can you say, on the outs with Oliver since I fucked up with the war council deal. After that, Night and him have become pretty much inseparable. I don't know shit that goes on between them, besides what Flynn tells me."

Conlon regarded her with his quick blue eyes. "And what does Flynn tell you?" he drawled.

She cocked a brow at him, and sighed. "From what he's heard, it ain't good. Oliver was pissed to high heaven that you didn't show for the war council and now he wants your blood. Flynn said he's been hearing rumors that something big is going to go down between Midtown and Brooklyn. As he put it, 'Frankly, Ang, when this shit does happen, you can bet my ass will be nowhere near Oliver Haddox when he has a bug in his ass cause of Conlon. That fucker will be dead as a doornail once old Oliver gets a hold of him.'"

Conlon said nothing in the heavy silence, only stared at her. His cigarette was not nothing but a pile of ashes. As though suddenly being struck by inspiration, he spat out the ashes and rose quickly to his feet. With his forearm his quickly wiped his matted hair off his brow. "Well, Haddox, you ain't worth Jack shit to me if you are on the outs with your brother. So I guess you better get on old Oliver's good side or all bets are off."

She stood also, her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted into a grimace. "That is a feat easier said than done. But I will try my best."

"After all," he replied, not skipping a beat, "I have your word."

_If possible you could have even more from me_. The words nearly slipped from her lips, but she held her tongue and only nodded. He was gazing momentarily out of one of the shattered warehouse windows as the sun dropped lower in the azure sky on this hot day. God, he was beautiful. Had she not been born with the surname Haddox, had she not a brother named Oliver, then perhaps things could have been different. She wished that she could taste the perspiration upon his lips, to run her hands through his greased hair, to feel the heat of his flesh against hers. Alas, life had awarded her the nomenclature of Brooklyn assassinator. It was an impossible, incredibly arrogant notion that she could ever be with him. She was Midtown. He was Brooklyn.

He turned towards her again, his eyes locking upon hers. "In a week. By the abandoned pier at the East River at dusk. Don't be late."

With those words, Conlon turned on his heel and was gone, disappearing out of one of the shattered windows with catlike grace. Angel's eyes lingered long after he was gone. Until she was alone.

She did not know what part of her mind willed her body to keep from collapsing to the floor in sobs, but she did not. She could feel the hot sensation of tears at the corners of her eyes, wanting to be unbridled, but she only inhaled deeply and sedated them. Instead she followed the Leader of Brooklyn's pathway out the window, carefully climbing out and landing on her feet with a soft thud upon the bricks below. She was dazzled by the late sun's glare momentarily. It was in that moment that she heard her name uttered.

"Haddox."

It was a flat, low voice negated of any ascertainable emotion. But it was a voice she knew like the back of her hand.

She already knew what she would find when her vision returned once more, and she was not discontented when she saw the figure. Flynn Finesse stood before her, tall and lanky, leaning on an elbow against the warehouse façade. His unbuttoned shirt was rife with perspiration, the hilt of his pistol visible from his waistband. His yellow hair hung loose and limp, matted to his neck. His demeanor was listless, but his eyes betrayed him. They were green and glowing with a fire.

The blood drained to her extremities. She felt lightheaded. She could only stare at him, her mouth gaping, not able to find the words.

He offered her a hand. "Let me help you up," he hissed. As though in a trance, she took it, and he yanked her harshly to her feet. She nearly toppled over before she regained her sense of equilibrium. She turned and looked into his green eyes. She now knew what it felt to be a victim at the end of Flynn Finesse's gun barrel, trembling with fear, breath bated in the throat, all rational thoughts unfettered from the mind. But somehow she found her voice.

"Flynn, let me explain."

His features contorted into hatred and he spat in her direction. He turned on his heel and began to stalk down the abandoned alley that neighbored the warehouse to the main avenue. She willed herself after him, her legs feeling like profoundly weighted bags of sand. She caught up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Flynn, please!" she implored, her voice saturated with desperation.

He brutally shrugged her off, turning around suddenly to look at her, causing Angel to slam into his chest. "Flynn, please," she heavily breathed. "Please don't tell my brother."

His glare chilled her blood. "And what exactly do you think I saw, Angel?"

She tried to read him, tried to find semblance of sanity to this situation, but she could not. She merely shook her head. "I don't know, Flynn. I don't know."

Flynn released a snarl and pushed himself away from her. His face was scarlet, his words livid. "I saw it all, Angel. I saw it all. I saw you sell yourself to that Brooklyn fuck like some kind of fucking whore!"

The words were like a dagger to the heart, but fleetingly the terror of being discovered left her and she was able to find some solace in the persona of the Angel of Death. Her voice became hard, stony. "Oh, yeah? And what the fuck were you doing following me here, Finesse? Did my brother demote you from assassin to babysitter? Is that what you are doing now, Finesse, following me around?"

Flynn halted suddenly, her words finding their obvious target. He then sharply turned around and strode towards her, his mouth gapping. "Angel," he said, his words disbelieving, "nobody sent me here. I came here because you are my friend, Angel. I came here because you have been worrying the hell out of me the last few days, acting like a loon and all after Oliver beat the shit out of you in front of all of us at the council. I came followed you here because after you ditched me today, I wanted to know if you were okay. I never expected…" His words trailed off as his eyes drifted to the warehouse that had held the traitorous rendezvous.

Angel released a deep exhalation and doubled over, placing her palms on thighs. In context, she found the entire situation positively hysterical. "He found me, Flynn, he found me," she explained, her voice giddy. "When Oliver sent me to Brooklyn the day of the war-council to spy on Conlon…he found me. He found me out and told me that I could either be a rat or he would take me to the war council and show off his pretty little prisoner to my brother." Realization came to Flynn's features as they relaxed. Angel's voice lost its hysterical edge, replaced by desperation. "What was I supposed to do, Flynn, huh? What was I supposed to do? Oliver let me off easy that night, but if Conlon had taken me there at knifepoint, I would be floating in some river right now. Fish food."

Flynn approached Angel, and snaked a lanky arm around her neck. "What the hell does he want to know?"

She gazed up at him with heavy eyes and an even heavier heart, he her only friend in the world. "That, Flynn is between me and him. You know as well as I that this was bound to happen, if not today than another day. Oliver was going to go down, and he was going to take you and me and all Midtown with him. Maybe this way you and me can be spared." Flynn opened his mouth to interject, but she swiftly interrupted him. "I love you, Flynn Finesse. You are the only friend I have in this fucked-up world. And I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

A smile found its way to his handsome features, only to be replaced by a much grimmer observation. "Are you sure you really took the easy way out, though? Do you know what the hell will happen to you, Haddox, if it's your brother that finds you the next time and not me?"

A shutter wrought its way down her spine at the thought, but his heavy arm around her was a comfort. She ignored the question. "I just need you to promise that you won't tell my brother."

He ran a hand through his sweat-slicked hair, contemplating his options. "You know I never would, Angel, you have my word. Just watch your ass. Just watch your ass."

The pair was silent for a moment, both in their own reveries in the darkened alleyway. It was Flynn that broke the silence. "Hey, Haddox, since you blew me off this morning for that Brooklyn fuck, do ya think we can at least get to the river before dark? I've been sweating my balls off for hours here and don't think I can stand much more of this goddamned sun!"

Angel elicited a laugh, a good hearty laugh that aided in freeing the pent-up tension. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go, you asshole!"

"Alright then, Haddox, last one to the river has to polish Nero Night's knob!" With those words, he took off, his long legs pumping underneath him, willing him down the alley, his feet pounding the stones.

"Hey, Finesse, not fair! I'm gonna get you if it's the last thing I do!" Angel screamed after him, taking off behind her friend.

They both exited the alley and made a hard left onto the main avenue at a breakneck pace, bumping and colliding into pedestrians and not giving a damn.

And then they were gone.

It had not even occurred to Angel that the steel-gray revolver that she had kept tucked in her trouser waistband for the last four years and had taken countless lives was lying on the dark, empty floor of the warehouse.

It would not be missed.


	14. Chapter Twelve

A/N: I made Chapter 11 a little longer, so if you haven't please reread it. Thank you. Reviews are always welcome.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Night had fallen over Brooklyn, and even though a full moon glowed heavy and sated in the dark sky, the atmosphere was still muggy and despicably hot. The white light from the smatter of stars in the sky brought no relief from the summer misery, either.

Her footsteps were careful and light as she made her way to the pier. The yellow hair that fell to her waist was tightly pulled under a floppy black hat. The milky skin and rosy cheeks belonged to that of the fairer sex were blackened with soot. The curve of the breasts was hidden beneath a heavy cloak. In this guise, with the aid of night's darkness, the traitorous face of a Haddox and the body of a seventeen-year-old girl could easily be misinterpreted for that of a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy.

An immaculate disguise was needed. For if found out by any Brooklyn newsboy, it was a predetermined fate that she would be lynched on site.

Angel Haddox was not particularly aware of the surroundings she passed as she made her way to him. She was much too lost in her own thoughts.

Winning her way back into Oliver's favor had been deceptively easy, almost a bit too easy. As before she had been the Angel of Death without even having to give a thought to it, now she had to don the persona as though she was a stage actor. She was consciously aware every waking second that she was portraying a role that was malevolent and grotesque. But it was a role that was demanded of her if she wished to get back into her brother's good graces. So, she became the Angel of Death constantly. She found it much effortless to be in the mindset of the cruel Midtown assassin unwaveringly rather than attempting to pass the façade off on just her brother, returning to her normal self when she was alone. She had changed, profoundly, she felt it in her bones, and knew it. She had slipped into being the Angel of Death very naturally the first day. Her brother had been skeptical at first, but he smiled when Nero Night had suggested she had been acting odd because it was "that time of the month." Yet he had smiled even more when Angel reacted by hurling a switchblade in Night's direction, missing his skull by inches. She had reassured him she was back and whatever had occurred in the past was all one big misunderstanding.

Oliver had believed her, and had included her from then on in with all and any plans he made concerning Brooklyn. That night, that first night, she had retired to her room on the third floor, had sat on her dilapidated mattress, and relinquished the role of the Angel of Death. And in doing so, she sobbed all night long. It was too exhausting, too tiring to be this thing during the day, retiring it only at night, so she made the choice to consciously be the Angel of Death constantly, morning, noon, and night. It was frustratingly hard to play along with the masquerade, but she had done it for the entire week. She had done it to get the information she needed to give to Conlon this very night.

At this moment, as she walked along a beaten dirt path overtaken by weeds that would eventually lead her to the pier and to Conlon, she was not the Angel of Death. Right now she was just Helena, simple teenaged girl.

She reached the pier much quickly than she had anticipated. She halted a few yards before the water's edge and searched for him. At first, he was not to be seen, and then a few seconds later she espied a slight rippling of the water. She followed the ripples to where their genesis had began, and there she saw him under the white light of the moon, treading the black water under the pier, bobbing up and down like a buoy. A slight smile crossed her lips in spite of herself, and she simply watched him from afar until he became aware of her presence. His eyes locked onto hers and a ghostly white arm came out of the water, waving about in the air.

She took this as her cue, and she approached him. She stopped when the tips of her sullied black boots touched the edge of the lapping water. She looked down upon him incredulously. Conlon stopped bobbing in the water and began to gracefully swim to the shore. He looked like an ethereal phantasm in the darkened water. He met her on the dry, sandy shoreline near the pier, and stood, water dripping off his body, clad in only a pair of white briefs. He cocked a brow under her disbelieving stare. He held her gaze as he reached down for a ratty shirt, using the rag to dry himself off. "What?" he said gruffly. "It got too damned hot out waiting for your ass. I thought I said dusk, not two hours after."

"I had problems getting out of there," she snapped in retaliation, shucking off the heavy cloak now they were alone. "My brother was all too keen to know where I was going."

Conlon was getting into his trousers. "Speaking of your brother, how is the rat bastard?"

"Charmingly homicidal as ever," she replied. She nervously began to kick the sand around with the toe of her shoe. He seemed to be taking his lazy time getting dressed. "So," she said hastily, breaking the silence, "let's make this fast, okay?"

"Okay, Haddox," he answered. His white shirt was unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up. His hair was wet, slicked back on his crown. He was barefoot, his toes wriggling around in the sand. The hems of his slate gray trousers dragged on the ground. He expertly lit a cigarette, threw the match aside, and took a long drag. Angel was suddenly, painfully, aware looking at him how he had managed to fuck so many girls in New York City.

She was glad for her blackened face, courtesy of the soot, otherwise Conlon would have seen the spectacular shade of crimson her cheeks had taken on.

"So what do you have for me, Haddox?" he asked flippantly, blowing a perfect ring of smoke.

She watched the ring, entranced by it, until it faded like a ghost in the hot night sky. "It's not good," she said with a gust of irritability. The heat was overtaking her in the black disguise, and she knocked her hat to the sand, allowing her plaited hair to fall down her back. She turned to him, her eyes intense. " Oliver is planning something, Conlon, he is planning something real big and real soon. He says he's going to invade Brooklyn, you know, because of that little insult bestowed upon him by you for not showing up to the war-council?"

Conlon snorted, closing the distance between them. The cigarette dangling from his lips, he slowly encircled her. "Are you telling me the truth, Haddox?"

"Yes," she relied in a cracked voice. "Why would I lie to you?"

"Because," he spat, "because you are Midtown. How do I know that you didn't tell your brother about all this and he sent you here to give me bullshit news and set me up for a trap? How do I know that?"

He was so close to her she could smell the aroma of the sweat clinging to his body. He was so close to her she could hear his breath rumble deep in his chest and feel it exhaled onto her face. She was so close to him that she looked into his fierce eyes and broke. "Because, be it may," she screamed in a high, raw voice, "that I am Midtown and you are Brooklyn, you are the only person on the face of the earth that has ever given a damn for me besides my parents! Do you think I wanted to go back to my brother? Do you? If I had had any brains whatsoever I would have taken the next train out of this shithole and left New York forever. But I didn't. I didn't! I went back to Midtown. I went back to my brother. I went back as the Angel of Death and I won his trust again. I won his trust for you…not only because I wanted to help you, but because I wanted to see you again. Do you understand that? I wanted to see you again…" Blinded to all ration, she reached for his face and brought her lips to his. She inhaled deeply, noting the taste of nicotine on his breath and perspiration on his lips. It was a fever even more wonderful than when she had kissed him before and for single moment in her life she felt like a normal girl, a girl who had never heard of Midtown or Nero Night or Oliver Haddox or…

Conlon broke away. He backed away and stared at her with wild, wounded eyes. "How dare you, how dare you. You killed my boys. You all killed my boys and you think I give a damn about you. You killed my boys, you murderous bitch. You killed my boys, you bitch, you and your precious Midtown, and you never, ever forget that." He spat furiously onto the sand.

The words had found their mark into the deepest folds of her heart. The tears cascaded down her cheeks, washing away the soot. "I know that, Conlon, I know that. Don't you think I have to live with the fact every single moment of very single day for the rest of my life that I am nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer? If I could, I would give my life for every one of those poor boys that I killed. I see that now and I understand what I have done and I take any and all consequences that come with that. Don't you think I wish I could be dead? Do you know how many goddamned times I have tried to kill myself and have failed? Because I am scared, I am scared that the next life will be even worse than this and I cannot stand that thought.

"You can hate me all you want, Spot Conlon. You are entitled to that. But please let me help you. I need to know that before I die I did at least one good thing with in my fucking life. I can help you and I will help you. I want this monstrous thing that has been created in part by me to be destroyed once and for all.

"You, Spot Conlon, are an enviable thing. Oliver may not know it, but he envies you, because you are a real leader, and you actually give a damn about your boys and they would die for you. Don't you wish I could be a part of something like that? Be a part of a family again? My chance has passed. My chance to have anything of a semblance of a normal life has passed. You know what I wish? I wish my last name wasn't Haddox. I wish I wasn't known as Angel. I wish my parents were still alive. I wish I didn't have a brother named Oliver who murdered them. I wish I had never heard of Midtown. And I wish I had never, ever held a gun. But above all I wish I were just a girl who could be with you and love you, because I would. But it's an impossible thought, because of some things that were in my control and others that were not. But that night, that night you came into my room and told me there was still time, and goddamn it I believe you! I didn't put a bullet through the roof of my mouth because I believe you. I don't want to be the Angel of Death anymore because I believe you. I understand that what I have done in the past will always haunt me, but there is still some time to do some good.

"I want to do some good for you. Because in spite of me being a murderer, an assassin, a monster, I love you."

He had been silent when she was talking, simply staring at her with those hard blue eyes, his emotions undistinguishable underneath the emotionless on his face. But with those concluding words, his demeanor broke. His eyes widened in shock, and his mouth fell open, and after a brief pause appeared as though he was going to speak, but Angel silenced him, holding up a hand.

She was slapping her hands on her knees and laughing wildly, her hair flying about. "The assassin sister of Oliver Haddox in love with Spot Conlon, leader of Brooklyn!" she choked out. "It's a regular riot, I know!" Her expression changed hastily, though, and her voice became, low, somber. She approached Conlon, staring directly into his eyes. "I know you think me insane, and you have no reason to. I guess it was a long way coming, but I realized it when I became the Angel of Death again for my brother the day after we met in the warehouse. I was sitting on my bed, crying my eyes out because of all the misery that thing had brought me, ready just to run away from that fucking place forever, but I realized that I would become the Angel of Death the next day and the day after that just for you. If I had to become that person again to get the information from my brother that you needed, then I realized I would. It became more than just trying to redeem myself, it became that I would do anything to help you, because you are the only person who has actually given a damn about me as a person, not just as theAngel of Death."

He was only inches from her, tall, staring down at her. The night was nauseatingly humid and the darkened waters of the East River licked at the abandoned pier and the sandy shoreline where they stood, he barefoot, she trembling in fear and anticipation.

"What's your real name?"

"What?" she cried softly, his question startling her.

"What's your real name, Haddox?" he implored again, lazily fishing a cigarette out of his pocket and thrusting it between his lips.

Angel elicited a high-pitched laugh, dazed by his question. "Helena. Helena Haddox."

Conlon was lighting the cigarette and throwing the match into the waters at his feet. "Nice to meet you, Helena Haddox. The name's Jonathan Conlon, Jr. Friends used to call me Jon; that is until I met Kelly and his band and they started calling me Spot. Ya know, on account of I was so good of spotting targets and shit with my sling."

He took a deep drag on the cigarette, and exhaled a deep puff of smoke, his eyes lost somewhere in the black, star dusted horizon and his toes wriggling in the water.

Angel cocked a brow at him, rendered incredulous at his blasé reaction. She snorted. "You know," she said softly, "I haven't told anyone my real name since my parents died."

"Yeah, same here," he replied shortly, taking the cigarette of his mouth and javelining it into the dark waters. "You know, when I found your ass in my room during that poker party, I was hoping I was going to get laid."

She threw him a disbelieving glance, her mouth open. He caught her gaze and shrugged. "What? If I didn't find humor in life I would have been dead by now."

They stood in silence in the blistering humidity, under the white light of the moon and stars for a good while, either never uttering a word. At one point Angel had taken her shoes off and rolled up her trousers, like Conlon allowing the cool water to lap at her feet. On her way home, Angel could not recall what she had thought during that time with him, that, in retrospect had seemed too frustratingly brief. What she could recall though is only what her senses recorded. How bright the full moon looked against the darkened sky. How the water sounded as is lovingly licked at her ankles. How cool the water felt on her flesh on an otherwise hot night. How warm his skin felt against his arm as they stood side by side. How rhythmic and low his breathing sounded next to her.

After some period of time, he turned to her, and said that he must be off. As he spoke to her, her eyes scanned his face in a loving desperation, attempting to memorize every shadow, every crease of his fair countenance. His arm lingered against hers for a moment more, before he pulled away and strode underneath the pier to collect his shoes. Angel watched as he slid them on his feet, and as he made his way over to her. He stared at her, and she was unable to read his face. He smiled a soft smile and said, "Two days. Dusk. Godfrey's Inn. Third floor." He then turned from her, but halted, and faced her once more. Lifting a strand of her hair, he placed his lips so close to her ear she could feel his breath play in her ear canal. "Next time, Helena Haddox, don't wear your heart on your sleeve. You never know who could be listening."

And Conlon left her. She watched until he disappeared and until she was standing alone in the water, trembling and excited and scared. She could only think about how the next two days would be the longest two days of her entire life.

Yet, she could have never fathomed how true Conlon's departing words to her would prove to be.


	15. Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Godfrey's was a ramshackle, dilapidated hovel of an inn located on the outskirts of Brooklyn. It was a shithole, but it was cheap, and for the weary traveler, the rumpled cot in each room was a welcome site. The Inn was a particular favor with the workers from the factory across the avenue. After a long, grueling day on the job, they could always count on guzzling a few beers in the downstairs pub, perhaps meeting a lone female, and if luck persevered, accompanying said female to one of the inn's rooms.

Angel had only been to the inn once before, perhaps two years ago, as she could recall. Oliver had put out a hit on a Brooklyn newsie who had been apparently courting a girl that Oliver had set his sites on. But courting a girl though in the vernacular of a Haddox meant taking her back to the warehouse and, without any frills, having sex with the girl. Of course, if she refused, that's what her brother's pistol was for, and he would always get what he wanted, even if it meant holding the weapon to the girl's temple during the entire act and promising death upon her if she opened her sweet mouth to anyone afterward.

As it happened, Angel borrowed some female attire from one of Oliver's many acquaintances, and went to a poker party at the Brooklyn Lodging House to seduce this newsie and to kill him. Although he was very much interested in her at the time, the kid had a great distaste for drinking liquor of any sorts, and refused any cup of beer Angel handed his way. This, of course, put a hatchet in Angel's plan, as seducing the inebriated hit was always her modus operandi. This did not deter Angel, though, as she now had to somehow remove the newsie from safety in numbers and lure him away from the lodging house. She did this by, after some time, feigning disgust for all the drunken newsies around her and wishing they could go somewhere else. The boy had suggested the Godfrey Inn, which was, in his words, "A quiet little place where we could get to know each other more." The Inn, it turned out was neither little or quiet, but it did not matter to Angel. She had a job to do.

They had been given a room on the second floor, and while the boy was undressing in the dark, Angel suggested that she might pour him a drink of water. She did so, her back to him, and in doing so added a small amount of a white powder that turned clear once in the glass. She kept it always on her as a just in case. The boy drank the water eagerly, and a few moments later, just when he had finished fully undressing, he passed out on the bed. With the effective remorselessness of a killer, she went into action, producing the hunting knife from within the folds of her skirt and slit him ear to ear. Stepping into a corner of the room to avoid the darkened pool of blood that was advancing outwards from the corpse, she quickly shucked off the dress down to the men's clothing underneath, and tossed the sanguineous stained garments thoughtlessly in the corner. She coolly walked out of the room, into the dimly lit hallway, jogged the flight of stairs, and made her way out of the inn undetected, even being briefly complimented by the fat man who manned the front desk.

The Angel of Death had claimed another victim.

The man at the front desk at this moment was not the fat man from two years past. He was a tall, wiry middle-aged man with a thatch of dark brown hair and a menacing stare. Angel approached under his intimidating gaze, pulling down low over her eyes the cap that concealed her hair.

He regarded her for a moment in heavy silence before saying gruffly, "Well what do you want?"

Godfrey's Inn. Third floor. That's what Conlon had told her two days ago. But what room number, she did not know. If he had gotten a room, he would have had to leave his name with the man. Surely, all she had to do was tell the man the name and he would tell her the room number. But even though being on the out skirts of Brooklyn, Conlon wouldn't be imbecile enough to leave the moniker Spot Conlon when he had attained the room. Angel's mind froze under the desk clerk's dark and impatient stare. She looked like a stammering fool; not even knowing the damn name the room was booked under!

The name's Jonathan Conlon, Jr. Friends used to call me Jon; that is until I met Kelly and his band and they started calling me Spot. Fragments of the conversation began to infiltrate her brain and some semblance of clarity came to her again. Jonathan Conlon, Jr. He hadn't told anyone his real name since his parents died. It was worth a shot.

The man was still glaring at her. "Well what do you want, boy? I don't have all bloody day."

"Jonathan," she sputtered. "I am supposed to meet my friend Jonathan. On the third floor."

The man cocked an insolent brow at her as he begrudgingly flipped through the guest log. He scanned down the list of names, stopping halfway through, and looked back to Angel. "Jonathan Junior?"

Angel nodded her head.

"Jonathan Junior. Room 316.Very popular tonight," the thin desk clerk muttered.

Angel took no heed of his last remark, and quickly made her way past the front desk, glad to be away from the dreadful stare of that man. The trek to the third floor seemed to take an eternity, the stairs stretching on before her to heaven. It was dank, dark, dim. The floorboards groaned under her weight and whispers of other patrons were audible through the walls. But she paid them no heed. She was to the third floor. She made her way cautiously down the hallway, glancing at the number of each room. Finally, she stood before 316. Her breath bated painfully in her throat.

He was behind that door, he who had tormented her mind relentlessly for the past 48 hours; he, her mortal enemy, whom she could but think of nothing else. She stood before the decrepit wooden door for what seemed like a lifetime, her eyes tracing the numbers carved into the door. It was only when she assumed the courage to, did she rap slightly upon the plank.

"Come in," came the voice. It was soft, low, almost inaudible through the door. She need not think twice about placing her hand upon the knob, and turning it. The door opened slowly, it hinges whining for a good oiling. Angel was greeted to a completely pitch black room. The only light was the dim yellow of the hallway that barely spilled a few feet inward. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her, becoming engulfed utterly in the blackness. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she felt a hand gently grasp her wrist and tug her forward. She was pulled into a clothed chest. She could feel the quick exhalations of the chest under her and feel the hot breath that smelt faintly of nicotine on her face. At the feel of him, all reason was abandoned entirely and she gave in completely.

She collapsed against him, relishing in the feel of his lithe chest rising and falling underneath her. "Oh, Spot," she sighed in spite of herself.

In the blackness, a hand was placed under her chin and her lips brought to his. She had only begun to savor the kiss when she noticed the uncharacteristic roughness to his lips and the fetid odor that clung to his breath. She was about to pull away to question him of this, when, suddenly, the room was illuminated. Angel let out a cry and was temporarily blinded by the abrupt light and pulled away. When she opened her eyes, she could not comprehend momentarily what she beheld.

Nero Night stood before her, holding a lantern up to elucidate his face, his wrist still grasping Angel's hand. His black eyes gleamed in a fiendish delight and a twisted smile rode his lips. Gales of explosive laughter escaped him.

She stood before him, paralyzed, the thoughts that crashed upon her mind a wave of jumbled, nonsensical fragments.

Night grinned at her, his eyes bright and dancing in the lantern light. "Oh Spot!" he mocked sighed, once again breaking into riotous laughter. This time, though, mirth was joined by low chuckles radiating from the surrounding darkness. Angel's eyes dazedly darted around the room, and back to Night's. His lips were curled into a putrid grin, until he read the sheer bewilderment in her visage. Then, like a predator about to annihilate it's pray, his eyes brightened as his face fell into that of savage sympathy. "Oh, you don't know, Angel, do you?" His voice was like razors.

At his words, the remainder of the lanterns blazed and spilled their light upon the remainder of the room. She could not comprehend the entirety of the site. Her eyes fell first to the group of Midtown thugs in the corner nearest her, their forms bulky and smiles wild, then to Flynn, his stance stiff and rigid, face drained of all color, and large eyes helpless, and then to Oliver, standing tall and thin, his face ghostly white and his eyes sparkling with unbridled hatred, a black, gleaming pistol clutched at his side. She scanned the remainder of her brother's army until her eyes fell upon the final corner, where they were crouched low to the ground holding their lanterns aloft.

And there amongst them slumped on the floor was Conlon. His dirty blonde hair was caked with dried blood. Both of his eye sockets were black as pitch. One eye was an aqueous scarlet from being filled with blood. His nose was shattered, and black blood was beginning to congeal on the lower half of his face. He had several scratches upon his face, including one noticeably deep dehisced gash on his left cheek. His cloths were ripped, torn, and bloody. Black and blue marks left their ravaging kiss on his body.

She found her voice. The scream, magnificently laced with pain, delicately interwoven with agony, would have been a stunning exercise in the feat of being able to conduct into material sound the sensation of having ones heart excised from the chest. Oh, it would have been a splendid scream, indeed, but it was silenced before it left her lips. Although at the site of Conlon her brain had been conceded to autopilot, Angel somehow, violently struggled to contain it. Some semblance of sanity had infiltrated her brain, and that sanity was courtesy of Oliver Haddox standing before her with a murderous gleam in his hate –filled eyes.

Angel stepped forward, her eyes still upon Conlon, stammering for a moment, before she turned to her brother. His lips were so pursed they were blue. His muscles appeared so tense that he seemed wont to spring on her at a moment's notice. His glare was scorching. Her breathing was laborious, as though she was asphyxiating, and she knew she would if she looked anymore at Conlon, but she forced out the laugh. Although it was intended to be a cool laugh, as though she was in one the joke the whole time, it came out giddy and high and wild like the laugh of a mad person.

"So I see you finally got him!"

Her words caused no reaction with her brother; his face registered no new sign of emotion. Nero Night, though, being an ignorant fool and emoting the reaction of the rest of the party in the room, elicited an exaggerated snort and, closing the distance between Angel and he, gave her a great prod in the side with the tip of his pistol, causing her to jump in her skin and turn towards him.

"Just what do you mean, Angel by 'I see you finally got him!' You're the slut that was fucking this piece of shit. You're the traitor that was meeting him all in secret to tell him all of Midtown's secrets!"

Her unadulterated fury at Night overrode the shock and grief of Conlon. Her blood suddenly blazed white hot, and her features contorted into rage. "Night, you stupid fuck!" she shrieked, balling her hand into a fist without a thought and burying it into his face. Night released a cry, and reeled back in shock. "You think I was actually fucking that Brooklyn piece of shit?" She spun to face the corner Conlon was slumped in and pointed heatedly at him. "I was using him. Using him for the sake of Midtown. Using him to get information about whatever and all moves Brooklyn was planning against Midtown. You stupid goddamned fool, you."

Night was visibly taken aback by her words, and a glimmer of hesitation crossing his features.

Oliver's words broke the silence. His voice was soft and calculated. "Hennery, beat the Fearless Leader of Brooklyn until he is within an inch of life."

A hulking mass with ruddy skin and a flash of blond hair nodded in compliance to his master, a dim smile crossing his lips. The two thugs that were at Conlon's shoulders each put a hand under his arms, and lifted him slightly off the ground. His head lolled forward, his legs powerless beneath him. Hennery rose to his feet, and rolled up his sleeves. As much of a stupid fool as he may be, he knew one thing and that was how to decimate in a fight. Hennery's fists were pummeling into Conlon before Angel could even comprehend what was occurring. He gave a good smash to the face, breaking the damaged nose even more, before moving to the abdomen. Conlon's cries of pain were weary and exhausted, as though Oliver's boys had had a good time to work on him before she had shown up. Flecks of blood smattered across Hennery's face as he battered Conlon with a savage, primordial hunger. The more vicious the attack became, the more his comrades cheered him on.

The scream, though subdued once, was too untamed to be bridled again, and found it way from Angel's lips. It was beautiful. Earsplitting and shrill and wrought with undeniable anguish, it pierced the ears of all that were in the room.

Angel snapped. Whatever façade had remained of being the controlled, imperturbable Midtown loyalist shattered that very night in the inn. The effective exterior of the cold-blooded killer that she had once worn with pride had crumbled, leaving in its midst a wild, terrified child. She was off running across the room to him before any of them could process it. She pounced on Hennery with a feral fervor, and began ripping at him with the same appetite he had had for Conlon. The natural fight instinct had taken power of her psyche, and she was oblivious to anything else besides relenting Conlon's suffering.

"Get off him! GET OFF HIM!" she screamed maniacally. Hennery was momentarily stunned by the attack, and Angel used the time efficiently. Her dull nails dug deep into the folds of his skin, ripping and clawing at him, and drawing blood. She dug deep into his scalp and yanked his head back forcefully, causing him to release a yelp. "Get off him! GET OFF HIM!" Her fingers were working their way to Hennery's eyes, ready to delve deep into the sockets, when she was struck on the back of the head bluntly. Her vision blackened fleetingly, and she fell off of Hennery and onto the hard wooden floor on her back. She elicited a groan, and as her sight found her once more, Oliver was standing over her, his pistol drawn, his eyes cold and black and glittering like two shards of obsidian.

"So, bitch, I guess you were lying," he whispered. He circled her like a vulture, those two black eyes never leaving hers. How, in a situation like this she could not comprehend, but it seemed to her he was slightly grinning. "Now tell your big brother, sis, why did you go traitor on us?"

The words came from her mouth without thought. "Fuck you," she spat vehemently

The change was so slight, yet so profound, but that is how Oliver Haddox was in every way. His visage enflamed red, his pursed lips fell open, his body began to quake with a frenzied rage, and those eyes, those ink black eyes glimmered with sheer hatred. His cool exterior was shed. Oliver's manic side, the side he kept oh so under lock and key, was ready to be exposed.

"You stupid fucking bitch, how dare you say that to me!" he screamed shrilly, bringing his booted foot violently into the side of her head. Angel released a sigh of agony, her vision threatening to blacken once more when she felt herself being pulled harshly to her feet by two sets of hands under either arm. "Look at me you bitch when I speak to you!" His hand left a painfully stinging threat across her cheek that shook the blackness away, and she stared at him, stared into his eyes full of so much unfettered abhorrence.

"You stupid slut bitch! You my own sister, betray Oliver Haddox for Brooklyn? I've given you everything you've ever wanted. Everything! And you betray me!"

She regarded him defiantly. "Then give me the parents back that you took from me, you son of a bitch."

She caught a glimpse of astonishment on his face, and his features slightly softened, before the words were processed and his rage surged once more. "You ungrateful fucking Brooklyn whore!" he bellowed, fluidly poising his pistol point blank at her skull and cocking the hammer, his outstretched arms shaking violently.

"So kill me," she hissed. "I'll see your ass in Hell."

Oliver released another grand scream as he began to pull back on the trigger with a quivering finger, ready to blow his sister's brains out without second thought, when Night came behind him and put a hand on Oliver's shoulder. "Remember what we said earlier?"

Night's words had a soothing effect on Oliver, for his body stance immediately loosened, his flesh became pale once more, and a diabolical smile touched his lips. He straightened and pointed the gun to the floor, cocking the trigger to its original position.

"Oh, yes, Angel, what we said earlier. I guess I should tell you about all that." He stepped closer to her, and she gazed at him with hatred, fighting to break free of the two thugs that held her. He encircled her. "You see, dear sister, we had come to the conclusion earlier that we would most indubitably have to put into action what we talked about before you were able to join us on this little rendezvous." He regarded Angel, smirking, his black eyes glittering. "You see, if you wouldn't have been such a fuck up on the night of the supposed war council, then this never would have happened in the first place and I would have had no reason to doubt your character. But you did, and I knew you were cracking and would be of no resource to me anymore. I knew I couldn't trust you any longer, so I began having Night and Finesse tail you everywhere you went. It wasn't until Night followed you to the Brooklyn pier one night that he overheard you not only conspiring with the enemy, but professing your love to him! Naturally something had to be done to quell this terrible predicament, so I decided to why not kill two birds with one stone? Catch the enemy and traitor in one lick. So we came to the very place Romeo wanted to meet you, and as you can see my boys had some fun with him before you arrived." He with a sweeping wave of his arms, he motioned in the direction of Conlon.

Angel could not look, only lower her head as waves of nausea passed through her body.

"Can't even look at him now, Angel, can you? Can't even look at him like the worthless traitor whore you are? Don't worry, though, I've thought of the perfect way to remedy that. Because you see, Angel, you will have to look at him again. You will look at him tomorrow at sun down as you, my dear sister, are bestowed the honor of pulling the trigger that will blow the dear Fearless Leader of Brooklyn's brains out!"

The room erupted into cheers and applause, hoots and hollers.

His words made no sense whatsoever. He would have been parlaying French for all she knew or cared, but she could not—would not—comprehend what he was yammering on about. Her brain had become numb, cold to any and all form of sane rationalization. But in her gut, deep down in the abyss of her gut, she felt the uncontrollable, psychotic hatred for Oliver Haddox. Her mind would allow her to process nothing more that the detestation for the thin little man before her.

Her vision went scarlet. Her stomach swelled into knots. Her blood pumped furiously, scalding the veins. She disengaged from sanity briefly, fleetingly, giving into the absolute rage that beckoned her into temporary madness.

She began to struggle wildly with the two restraining her at the sides. She bucked and screamed, her voice raw and hoarse. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" She bellowed the same phrase over and over, never wavering, her crazed eyes affixed to the kin before her. She writhed in their grasp, bringing her head down to the forearm of the one to her left and quickly sinking her teeth into his skin, ripping out flesh and causing the wound to weep blood profusely. He elicited a startled yelp of pain, relinquishing hold on Angel just briefly enough so she was able to kneel the other savagely in the groin. He doubled over in agony, and she was emancipated and lunging at Oliver and retrieving the buck knife from the sheath strapped to her calf.

He sidestepped her easily, and she went to the wooden floor, hard, the wind knocked out of her, the buck knife falling from her sweaty grip. Oliver was swift, connecting the heel of his boot with the back of her head, producing a sickening crack on impact. A cry of agony escaped her lips at the blow. He had momentarily paralyzed her.

He crouched beside her, leisurely, retrieving the gleaming silver blade from the ground. He regarded her, insolently, his lips curled into a sneer, as she wheezed and struggled on the floor before he rose. With a nod to Hennery, Angel was lifted viciously off the floor and onto her feet.

"Put her on the desk."

A set of rough, calloused hands was placed on her lumbar, and she was brutally pushed across the room, her abdomen slamming into a ramshackle desk across the room. A pair of arms scooped up her legs, unhinging her equilibrium, and she toppled over, another set of strong arms catching her before she connected with the floor. She was hurdled down upon the desk; the two sets of hands pinning her down, one her legs and the other one her shoulders and upper arms.

A third pair of hands came into her immediate view as she stared up at them all, struggling furiously atop the desk, causing its decrepit legs to rattle underneath her weight. The hands went to her mouth, cupping over it, halting her escalating screams of protest, and the other pushed down hard upon her sternum, securing her into place.

And then Oliver came into view, his skin pale, jagged smile wide, black eyes glittering like polished black rock. He addressed her.

"You, bitch, are a traitor. You will live, but every day after you will know the true meaning of suffering. You will feel the wrath of Oliver Haddox. And I will make sure no man will ever touch you for as long as you live. For I will always make sure they know the truth."

With a slight nod of the head, one his minions struck a match and brought it to Oliver. Silently, he raised aloft Angel's knife with an exaggerated motion, as there would be no doubt of her viewing what he was to do. He took the match to the glittering blade, his ruthless smile growing the redder the tip became.

Her hysterical cries were silent, muffled by the strong hand over her mouth. Her spasming body held down securely.

When he was satisfied it had reached proper temperature, he nodded once more, and the hand was taken off her sternum and used to pull her shirt up, exposing the bare flesh of her abdomen. She writhed with a desperate fury out of sheer terror, but to no avail. He was smiling maniacally at her, but she could only stare at the blade tip, the red-orange harbinger of an absolute, impossible agony.

And he touched the blade to her skin. The flesh sliced and scalded, sizzled and burned as he carved. Her brain exploded into fireworks of red as the pain consumed her. He merely grinned wider and wrote upon her pale flesh, laviciously taking his time with each scrawled letter.

Angel was granted a mercy by some fate, though, as her consciousness rescinded and she slipped into a black oblivion.

He concluded some time later, and he stepped back to admire his work, the blade cooling considerably after scrawling I-A-M-A-B-R-O-O-K-L-Y-N-W-H-O-R-E upon her stomach.


	16. Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Angel, get up now. We are getting out of here."

The words burrowed deep into the inner most crevices of her brain, resounding audibly, but not necessarily comprehensible. Her mind reached out to the sounds, grasping them, attempting to decipher them, but all meaning simply slipped away as though grains of sands in fingers.

"Angel. Haddox. Get up now. It won't be dark much longer."

This time the words were accompanied by a harsh thrust to her body. A groan escaped her parched, dry lips. The deep velvet black of oblivion was lightning to a charcoal gray. And then the heavy eyelids somehow opened and the gray turned to a set of bright green eyes, shining like a cat's, and a mess of pale blonde hair escaped from a queue and obscuring the eyes.

His breath was hot, frantic, and blowing out in puffs. She rejoiced in the feel of his breath caressing her cheek, the slight scent of tobacco and rum invading her nostrils. It was a lovely sensation…and then the pain.

O, the pain! She new if there was a God he had forsaken her by bestowing this wretched, miserable gift upon her. Her belly burnt white hot, as though her skin was being charred alive. The memories were faint, scant, on how he had been introduced to this terrible misery. Darkness. And lanterns blazing. And hands grabbing her, restraining her as though she were some sacrifice to…the blade. The silver blade that gleamed white with smoldering fire at the tip. The blade that had pierced through the soft white flesh of her belly. The blade he had carved her with, so calculatingly and methodically.

She was overtaken by agony and released a howl of pain. She sat bolt upright, her hand trying to touch her stomach to ease the pain, but it was too much to bear and she drew away.

He felt his warm palm against her forehead and she closed her eyes, resisting the pinpricks of tears that threatened. She drew her eyes open, and was once more subjected to reality and all its cold starkness.

Flynn was before her, hunkered down and one hand on her brow. His eyes were slits, heavy-lidded and narrowed in concern. Dark circles and deep crevices hardened his handsome visage. His straw-colored hair was loose and brushing his shoulders, a few stray strands falling carelessly across his brow. His countenance was hardened, fatigued. His lips fell in a grim frown.

"I don't know what I can do for the pain, Angel. I can only give you this." He sounded utterly helpless. He fumbled behind his back for a moment, retrieving a silver flask. Angel greedily snatched the flask from his grasp, unscrewing the lid and placing the opening to her lips. The whiskey was lovely, making a hot trail down her throat and into her stomach.

She polished off the contents of the flask and placed it carelessly at her side. She glanced around, finally taking in her surroundings through the haze of pain. They were in her room, she on her decrepit mattress, he kneeling beside her. Moonlight from the sated full moon flooded through the cracked pane of glass aloft in the wall.

Angel uncrossed her legs from underneath her, and shakily, like a colt, began to rise to her feet. Yet, there was a surge of fiery pain that ripped through her stomach. She inhaled sharply, doubling over. Flynn clumsily stood, cradling the crook of her elbow gently in his hand. Before he could sputter his sentiments, she turned to him, and glared fiercely at him, her eyes narrowing into venomous slits.

"Getting out of here? Just where the hell are we going to go, Flynn?"

A shadow of seriousness crossed his features, and his grip upon her grew tighter. "Away from here, Angel, just away. I don't give a damn where we go, I just want to get away from this fucking place."

Suddenly, she locked gazes with him, her lips deepening into a sneer. "No," she hissed, shaking off his grasp.

He regarded her incredulously, disbelief entering his foam green eyes. "No? No? NO? You can actually stand before me and refuse me? Angel, what Oliver did last night to you is nothing compared to what will happen to you. He and is boys are out right now at the Hideaway getting trashed. When they come back tonight they will kill you."

Angel elicited a hysterical laugh. "Kill me? Kill me? Have you completely forgotten I am to kill Spot Conlon at sundown? My brother would never kill the executioner of honor prematurely, now would he?" The mad edge to her voice dimmed to grave seriousness. "After all the atrocities I have committed I could really give a goddamn what my brother decided to do with my life. If anyone is escaping tonight, it's _him_."

Flynn's face fell slightly, but his green eyes ignited with a heat that betrayed his cool countenance. "Do you love him?"

At his query, Angel released a dejected sigh, shifting her eyes to the ground to stare at Flynn's booted feet, unable to take the intensity of her assassin partner's gaze. Her bare legs buckled underneath her, and she collapsed to the mattress, slipping out of Flynn's grasp.

Ignoring his burning glare, she carefully regarded the slovenly, tattered button down she wore, the same shirt she had work when the 'incident' had taken place. The midsection of the garment was stained a rust color from copious amounts of blood. The blood from the seeping wounds had congealed so that the cloth was adhered to her skin. She lifted the shirt up, wincing as the cloth was peeled from the skin. This gentle tugging motion caused the letters to begin to freshly weep scarlet blood.

She read the letters silently to herself. I-A-M-A-B-R-O-O-K-L-Y-N-W-H-O-R-E. Scrawled in Oliver Haddox's familiar penmanship across the white of her belly. She needn't to look up to know that Flynn had lowered his eyes in heartbreak.

Angel glanced up at him, her grey eyes dull. "I don't know. I told him I did. And I thought I did. Actually, I know I do. I do because he is the only person who has ever seen me for more than just being Oliver Haddox's Angel of Death."

"I did," Flynn interjected ever so suddenly. Angel halted, her breath bated painfully in her throat. He took her hands between his and clasped them together. His eyes glittered like polished glass, filled with a longing. His exhalations were brisk; his breath hot on her face.

"I…" he started, but Angel placed the pad of her index finger to his soft lips, begging him not to go on. Flynn only roughly shook his head vehemently, running a hand through her wheaten hair, resting it on her crown. "Let me say my peace, Angel. I cannot even begin to express what it must have felt like for you last night, Angel. I only wish it would have me instead of you. You know I would rip my heart out of my chest for you. I should have--"

"You should have done nothing!" Angel defended passionately. "What good would it have been for you to speak up and us both be killed? At least Oliver still thinks of you as an ally."

He shook his head furiously, silencing her words, his hand sliding down to cup her cheek. "Because I am a coward, Angel. I am a no good yellow-fucking-bellied coward, that's what I am. I should have protected you, Angel, I should have protected you at any cost just not because you are my best friend, but because I…because I will rip out the heart of anybody that touches you again.

"Angel, I fucked up. I don't know what happened. I didn't have a damned thing to do with last night. I never acted as a spy for your brother, only Night did. That day I followed you n overheard your conversation, I did it only because you were my friend, Angel. I didn't know what was wrong with you, why you had been acting so damned strange so I followed you because I was worried about you. I never breathed a single word to your brother. He had Night tailing you without my knowing. I didn't know nothing of it until we were actually in the damned room and they ambushed Conlon."

His eyes were smoldering, his face burning, and his jaw clenched. His grip grew to a death-lock around her hand. "I swear if I had known anything of it beforehand, I would have told you.

"I've always had some extra change saved up. You know, if I ever wanted to start a new life? Well I want to start a new life now, Angel. I don't know if love and war fucks with people's minds, but I gotta get this off my chest and tell you this now, Angel Haddox, because I don't know if either one of us will be alive by tomorrow. I love you, Angel. I always have, and I always will. Come away with me; let's leave this place now. Let's get on a train and get the hell out of New York."

Angel went completely and utterly numb, her brain unable to function, unable to comprehend what the assassin kneeling before her had said. Love and war must fuck with people if it compelled their innermost desires and fears to erupt to the surface. Desires and fears that were pronounced over the fear that one might not live to see another day.

But she could not even entertain the notion of escape with Flynn Finesse—no matter how exquisite—because there were greater things afoot that just she and Flynn. She could not even begin to decipher the abysses of her heart as long as Spot Conlon remained in mortal danger.

His gaze was intense, staring her down in anticipation of an answer. His breathing was laborious. He was so beautiful, akin to a sun god. But, she shakily swallowed any inkling of feelings of adoration she may have towards Flynn, and feigned disinterest.

"Where is he?" she asked, her voice low.

Flynn released an exasperated sigh, his steely eyes turning to unremorseful flint. "Oliver's got him tied up in the basement, probably unconscious. Halloran's guarding him."

"Get me down there to see him." Her voice was soft, but her tone devastatingly clear.

"Let me see what I can do."

His voice still, remarkably, held some faint glimmer of its renowned cockiness, even though its owner had been nearly beaten to within an inch of life.

He spoke the word as she descended the decrepit stairs to the cavernous basement, unable to see her, but his hearing acutely heightened by the endless blackness. He only had to distinguish the soft fall of her bare feet against the steps to know it was she.

"It can't be sundown already, Haddox. I haven't even got my last meal. All death rowers at least get a last meal."

His words were laced with impossible arrogance, and at them she threw herself down the remaining stairs with a sob, hurling herself over to the stone pillar against which he was bound.

Angel choked out an exhalation, skittering to her knees on the well-trod red clay floor of the basement. She held the kerosene lantern aloft before him.

Conlon's visage was something she thought the mind could only conjure in nightmare. She winced and closed her eyes, futilely attempting to black out the massacred face her brother's maliciousness had wrought.

"What, Haddox, do I look that bad or something, that you can't even look at me?" The cocky humor in his voice wrenched her eyes open, forcing her to behold the site before her, bathed in the pale glow of the lantern.

Conlon' face was nearly demolished. The nose was broken, the bridge a shattered, swollen lump. The lovely crystalline blue eyes were dotted with ruptured blood vessels. The handsome face was pocked with ugly, raging black and blue marks. Deep lacerations rode the cheeks, forehead, and chin, proudly displaying their violent, bloody scarlet hue.

He regarded her with his one good eye, defiantly almost, not wanting her pity. The other eye was a swollen purple mass. She expected him to say something witty and sharp, even in the twilight of such atrocities to come, but he said nothing of the sort. The arrogant smile that had adorned his cracked, bloody lips had faded, and he regarded her solemnly in the pale bath of kerosene light.

"What are you doing here, Helena?"

That her true Christian name had sprung forth from his lips so easily caught Angel with her guard down and rocked her core. She was instantaneously numbed, and the words were automatic.

"I've come to get you out of here."

The corners of his lips turned up into a slight smirk, as he never once lost the cool façade that had made him such a great leader. He rested his head back against the pillar he was bound to, tucking his feet underneath his legs Indian-style.

"Oh, really? You have? And let me ask you what you intend on doing with me once I am released?"

Angel could only shrug her shoulders desperately as she grasped for the plan that eluded her, the words coming from her lips as an idiotic stammer. "I don't know. Return you to Brooklyn? Does it really matter where you go as long as you are safe and away from this damned place? My brother, Night, and most of his goons are at the Hideaway." She sidled on her haunches to around back of the pillar where Conlon's hands were bound. She produced a switchblade with a flourish, and was poised to begin to cut the ropes that fettered him, when he harshly jerked at the ropes with his bound wrists, causing the switch to fly a good distance away, landing with a soft thud on the dirt floor.

Angel felt the color rise in her cheeks, enflaming them, causing an acute burning sensation as the blood in her veins also ran white hot. She was suddenly enraged, furious at his foolish, infantile behavior.

She pushed off the ground so she sat on her haunches, and angrily crawled around the pillar to face him. Her eyes flashed angrily, and every muscle in her body was tensed. "What the blue fuck did you do that for? I was trying to get you out of here!"

His good eye flashed in unadulterated fury, as steely blue as the sea during a raging storm. "Are you truly that goddamned stupid, Haddox? Say you do release me here and I steal back into Brooklyn to escape the executioner's bullet. Say I don't ever return to Brooklyn—it doesn't even matter where I go. If I am in Brooklyn, if I am not, it will still give Oliver Haddox the excuse he's always wanted to burn Brooklyn to the ground and spit on her ashes. As ungentlemanly as he may be--"

Angel had to suppress a snort of hollow laughter at Conlon's vastly underwhelming summation of her brother's character. The hot, sharp pain in her belly from his careful penmanship and the disastrous ruins of the Brooklyn leader's face proved otherwise. Her reverie broke as Conlon continued uninterrupted. "—There are still some gentlemanly rules of war that all leaders must abide by, no matter how twisted or corrupt. Now, if you were to give your brother the excuse of an escaped prisoner, he would decimate Brooklyn whether I am there or not without second glance."

He glared up at her, his good eye flashing, with an unanswered challenge, daring her to defy him.

Angel broke and a wild, deranged gale of laughter escaped her lips, eerily out of place with the humid silence the basement possessed. She rose sharply to stand, and hurled the switch that could have heralded his freedom angrily at his feet.

"Why do you care so much you, damned fool, why?" she hissed, her voice laced with deadly venom.

Conlon kicked the blade away with as much force as his bound feet would allow. His eye glowed electric with a primordial hate as he spat on the ground in her direction.

"Why do I care? Why do I care? Because I give a damn about something that is more than myself. Because just like all those boys of mine you killed I would be willing to die for them! I, as a leader, am expendable. There will always be another to take my place.

"And because I have pride. Pride in Brooklyn and what I have become with her help. With out her, I would be nothing more than a homeless, friendless, orphaned, sorry son-of-a-bitch with nothing to care for in the world. I would die for them. And come today, I will."

Regarding him, that ungodly proud defiance causing his eyes to smolder, she felt her soul commence to shatter. Of course she had never cared about a cause greater than herself. Her only thoughts in life had centered to only herself, the Angel of Death, and how many boys she could murder with night as her cloak, how much pleasure she could derive as she watched them beg for their life and piss their pants under the barrel of her gun, and how much loot she could thieve from their corpses.

There had only been one thing in her tenure as an assassin that had made any sense in her insane world…

"You must love something in this life, Helena." The words were so simple and clear, and they pierced her heart like a dagger.

She regarded him, holding and catching his gaze. Even though his face was a travesty, he was still so devilishly beautiful. The burnished gold hair may have been matted with dried blood, and the lips that had kissed so many have been split, and one of those cerulean eyes may have been a swelled-over lump, but, God, he was still beautiful.

For some fleeting moment she thought she had been in love with him, like so many others of the fairer sex that had came before her. She loved him, but was not in love with him. They were creatures of two entirely paradoxical worlds. He was so much greater, and stronger, than she had even been, so much more than she could ever imagined being.

He had saved her in every way a person could possibly be saved.

For some reason she did not know—and did not want to know—he had taken pity on this fallen creature, be they mortal enemies or not. She had made the remarkable transformation from Angel of Death, ruthless, merciless assassin, to weak-minded, weak-willed, confused little girl, wanting to fervently to commit suicide, but too afraid of what waited in the afterlife to actually complete the act.

She had been that bewildered, frightened girl until she had looked in the misty blue depths of his eyes, and only then had she truly found herself and had truly known who she indeed was.

Oliver had carved into the flesh of her belly that she had been Conlon's whore. But he had been her savior.

She crouched before him, a soft smile alighting upon her lips. She brought a palm to his face, cupping his bruised cheek. With the fingers of her other hand, she softly brushed them against his swollen lips. She was studying him, but his gaze only fixed on her, his demeanor never changing.

Moving her head closer to his, she brought her lips to his ear. She whispered, the sweet heat of her words dancing in his canal. "I love Flynn."

She pulled away to look at him, the words sinking deep into the innermost abysses of her heart and sounding so right.

He was smiling. That wonderfully dashing smile had crept up the corners of his mouth, revealing two dimples settled in the crevice. "But does he know?"

Angel felt the heat creep into her cheeks and bloom scarlet. She suddenly felt embarrassed at her admission to him.

Conlon only continued to smile, that wise, mysterious smile. There was only one thing he could possibly say. "_There's still time_."

Angel's grin faltered, and fell, at his direct words. They punctured her soul.

Today this man before her was to die. By her hand.

She rose to her feet before him, looking down at him, her countenance grim. She did not know what on earth she could do to save him, but she must at all costs, even her life. She did not give a damn what became of her life anymore. She was far beyond caring for herself. She only cared for saving him before Oliver snuffed out his precious light forever.

Turning her back to him was one of the hardest gestures she had ever had to make in her short life. But he would not let her save him now. She would have to recoup and try later.

She had walked over to the stairs that would usher her to the world above and to Flynn, when Conlon's voice rang out, clear and utterly cocky in the humid basement air. "By the way, Haddox, you really did make a shitty spy!"

It was not his words, as much so as the cool confidence with which they were spoken, that prompted her to take the steps two at a time and tears to spring to her eyes in her desperation to widen the distance between them.

Flynn was waiting at the top of the stairs for her where he had left her. He was leaning against a hallway wall, his long arms folded loosely across his chest and legs crossed at the ankles, his cat-like green eyes scanning the hallway for any sign of Oliver and company. His plan to get Halloran completely drunk with a spare bottle of rum must have succeeded, for the portly boy was nowhere to be seen.

Angel raced up the last remaining step, and slammed the decrepit door of the basement behind her with much cacophony. She ran towards Flynn and collided into him. She melted into the hard planes of his chest that were hidden by the pale blue button down he wore. Instinctively, his arms were around her, pulling her closer. Blindly through tears, she reached for his face with her hand, unfurling silken strands of his hair from the queue, running her palm over the deep hollows of his cheekbones. With reckless abandon, she vaulted onto her tiptoes and feverishly pressed her tear stained lips to his. He grew rigid for a brief moment underneath her, and elicited a slight, surprised groan, before he conceded and melted into her, winding his hands through her pale, slovenly hair. The motion of Flynn bringing her closer to him made her belly wounds scream in excruciating pain, and the tears came only harder.

It was a kiss mixed of absolute love and of genuine fear.

Flynn must have been right. Love and war must fuck up people, for alliances were professed and strengthened on the very whim that one might not ever see the other again.

And as war had made her realize, Angel could not bear the notion of losing him.

She need not express what she felt for Flynn Finesse in her heart of hearts. She need only sob into him, the stray, salty tears trickling into his mouth as she parted his lips boldly with her tongue.

Angel did not know how long he had embraced her for; time had ceased to have meaning. She only pulled away and regarded him, the tears gone, and in their place eyes as hard and grey as flint.

"Flynn," she said. "I have a plan. And I need your help." And she brought her lips to his ear.

Outside, the rising sun ushered forth the first rays of the sun's light through the broken panes of glass harbored in the window above the pair.

It was daylight.

A/N: Thanks to Shakspearean Fool who proofread this mess for me!!


	17. Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

_To Whomever is Reading This,_

_My Christian name is Helena Elise Haddox. But Christianity is something I have not known for some years so my name to you is Angel Haddox, High Assassin to and Sister of Oliver Haddox, the Leader of Midtown. The Angel of Death. _

_I know it is said that those that are about to take their lives write notes saying all that is miserable and wrong in their life and why they intend to end their lives and woe to them…Suicide notes they call them? Well, I can tell you, this is not one of those. But the mess I have gotten myself into is something like suicide. It's something I have stupidly and foolishly gotten myself into and perhaps it is though I am giving up my life because of the events I have become involved in, but I think these things were in play long before I was around to have any say in them. What do they call it? Fate?_

_It was fate that brought me to the current Leader of Brooklyn. Jonathan Conlon, Jr. (a junior nonetheless!) as he told me his true name was. I hardly know him, yet I know I would lay down my life for him without having to think twice and die for him. Oliver Haddox's sister die for the leader of Brooklyn! Now if that ain't shits and giggles I don't know what is? _

_After this is all over, there will be many questions. Many questions, many of which the answers have been long forgotten to. But I know the answer to one question. What started all of this between Brooklyn and Midtown? Why Spot and Oliver? As I do not know all the details of Oliver's madness, I can tell you that he used to be a Brooklyn newsie. Yes, Midtown's own ruthless leader a Brooklyn newsie!_

_We used to live in Brooklyn, my brother and I, but of course this was when our parents were still alive. Before Oliver murdered them…He was a newsie under Ace Spanner then, as was Spot…and I knew Spot, but from afar. He was completely beautiful, even then, and I fancied myself in love with him. But where Spot was well liked and friendly, Oliver was mean-spirited and hated. He loathed Spot Conlon. Absolutely hated the ground he walked on…all because he was everything Oliver was not. _

_The madness had always lived inside Oliver…festering inside him, and I think Spot Conlon was the catalyst for it to erupt in all its ugly glory. I don't remember that night much…I have blocked it out you see, not intentionally, but I think that the human mind can only absorb so much trauma otherwise it would collapse upon itself…But I remember it was a night without any stars…and a small sliver of the moon hung in the sky…and it was so cold and the sky so dark, so dark like obsidian…_

_It was the screaming that had woke me up. The screaming that still haunts my dreams. The screaming had paralyzed me and had caused me to freeze in my bed….I had no idea what those fucking noises were or what was going on…_

_And then he entered my room. My brother entered my room. And the little light that the moon did have that night shone in on my room and onto him as he staggered into my room. He had his hands out before him and he was gazing into them. The blood was black in the moonlight…_

_His eyes black as coal were wild and alive with a fire I had never before seen in my brother. Those eyes terrified me to the marrow of my very bones. He was ranting and raving of how he had freed us…FREED US! COULD I NOT UNDERSTAND IT? And he came to me, jumped on my bed where I was still frozen and embraced me, and covered me in the warm, black blood of my slain parents…_

_We then went came to Midtown. I was but ten, but I was his property you see. My brother had the distorted notion that since he freed (FREED!) me from the grip of our parents that I was now his do with what he pleased…_

_So it was decided that I would be trained to be his assassin. After all, the charms of a lady would be much harder to resist for said target and much easier for me to complete my work._

_Flynn Finesse was brought into the picture when I was no more than thirteen years old…he was a year or so older than me, but already a superbly skilled assassin. His employer at the time had been Riley Lyner of Queens notoriety…but Flynn's lord was the dollar. He was a mercenary for whoever would pay the most, and Lyner kept him quite content at Queens._

_Oliver though had wanted to bring Queens to its knees. As a fledgling force to be reckoned with, Oliver knew Queens was already long established and Oliver wanted Midtown to succeed at any price. So he fancied that by taking out their top assassin, Queens would be at a great loss. _

_So, of course Oliver called upon me. I had been in training for a little over a year by then, and Flynn was to be my first victim. I was to act as some commonly whore and I met him at an inn on the outskirts of Queens. I had my revolver tucked into my garter and I was to dispose of him quickly and quietly…but I could not. I could not bear to kill that man. We talked…at least he chatted to me quite nonchalantly about life as I sat, a quiet shell…inside crumbling and desperate to cry. What kind of assassin was I if I could not even do away with my first intended hit! Flynn was charming, so utterly charming…but not with any false pretenses. He was genuinely kind to me…even as a person in his situation. _

_So instead of dying, Flynn Finesse took me, and I cried the entire time. When it was over…I knew I had been lost forever to the Angel of Death. Even though I had not killed him, I knew that I was no longer Helena Haddox but this wretched, twisted monstrosity that my brother had created. The Angel of Death. _

_Flynn only enabled that transformation after he became one of Midtown. Oh, it always seemed a great paradox to me, a such a gentled natured man being an assassin, but so it was. And he taught me skills that I would never have learned otherwise…skills that transformed me into the sublime assassin I became…._

_It is only in such a fucked up world that I could love Flynn Finesse. We are one and the same, we have been born and raised in the same terrible world and it is all we know…and because of this I realize that I love him with my entire soul…_

_But what of Jonathan Conlon, Jr? Ah, yes, he sits several stories below me in the basement bound to a pillar, bloodied, goddamned proud as ever…and refusing to be let go._

_I am to kill him today, you see? At sundown, it is I who is to be his executioner and place the bullet in his skull…Peering through all the hysteria into a moment of clarity…I cannot comprehend why Oliver is doing this…or perhaps I should better say what in Oliver's mind he intends that Spot's death will give him? The end of Brooklyn? There will always be a Brooklyn. Whether Spot dies or not…there will always be a Brooklyn, and there will always be another leader to replace him, without sounding crass. She cannot fall easily. _

_My brother is out getting drunk right now with his son of a bitch newsboys as I write this. He has deluded himself utterly as to why he must kill Spot Conlon and for the life of me I do not know the reason why…all I know is the true and pure reason for his underlying hatred…_

_Simply, Spot Conlon is the man, the leader, that Oliver Haddox will never be. And he despises him for that. Loathes him. _

_And I must murder him. _

_I know you ask But must you truly? Must you truly murder him? Does a person possess not their own free will? Indeed, a person, no matter how fettered one truly believes they are, is in ultimate control of their destiny…but who am I to wax philosophy? I am nothing but a lowly murder. But to answer the proposed question: If I were not to kill Conlon at sundown then Oliver would murder me. Perhaps it would be at his hand, perhaps he would have this B-R-O-O-K-L-Y-N-W-H-O-R-E tortured for my disobedience to the master before I ultimately kicked the bucket, but my death would come eventually. _

_Death, I've realized, is not some mysterious, uncertain entity that I fear anymore. I used to be selfish, fear for my immortal soul, fear that all the victims that I had taken in life would have the last laugh once Old Scratch had me down there in Hell. But now I don't give a fuck. I welcome death. I must atone for what I have done in this life, and no matter how much I blame Oliver for my situation in life, ultimately I must take full responsibility for what I have become. _

_I have this odd feeling that I have one last use in this life. I must live so that I can save him. So cannot go against Oliver's wishes…I must murder him to save him…_

_Ah, I know. That is a paradox. But while I have been awake all night, thinking of him full of his stupid pride held prisoner down in the warehouse…a plan has come to me. An absurd plan. But a plan nonetheless. _

_Flynn is already out setting it in motion._

_It's absurd…but it is still a plan. _

_I am so tired. But I have never been more awake. I don't know what will transpire over the next 24 hours…I don't know who will be alive or who will be dead. _

_Myself included. _

_If I do not make it, I can only wish he does. _

_Yours Faithfully,_

_HH_


	18. Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Angel was in the throes of a black, dreamless sleep when they came for her.

Flynn did not bother to extend her the courtesy of knocking on her door to gain egress. He simply placed his palm on the door knob and flung it open silently, the hinges not even protesting with their usual whines. He entered as silently as an assassin, his stride determined and expression hard, emotionless. The portly figure of Hal Halloran followed slightly behind him, his round face flushed and diaphoretic. He halted in the doorway, placing a hand on the frame, doubling over, a hot stitch raging in his side.

"Jesus Christ, Flynn, can't you--" the newsboy begun, his words dying on his lips with a silencing glance by Flynn. Flynn was standing over Angel's bed, gazing down at her slumbering figure sprawled on the decrepit mattress. He threw Halloran the stony look over his shoulder. He had to be along with Angel if only for a few moments…

Flynn turned on his heel and strode briskly over to Halloran who was still leaning on the doorframe for dear life, panting akin to a dehydrated canine. Flynn stood nearly toe to toe with Halloran, throwing his broad shoulders back with the purpose to appear more menacing to the shorter newsboy. Halloran peered up at him, unsure.

"Get out of here, Halloran. Now." Flynn gritted with clenched teeth.

Wariness crept over Halloran's red face. "Now, Flynn, you know I can't do that. I'm on strict orders by Nero himself that I am to be here with you when we get Angel…"

"You don't trust me, Hal?" Flynn intoned in a low voice, inching even closer to Halloran.

Halloran's Adam's apple bobbed comically as he took a deep gulp. "You know it's not that, Flynn, it's just that…well, last night…when you got me drunk…_she_ was able to sneak down there…and, you know, thank Christ Oliver didn't find out…but I really don't want to press my luck twice, if you know what I mean…"

Flynn rolled his eyes slightly in disgust at the stammering newsboy before snatching Halloran's collar and with the grace of a panther lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the doorframe. Halloran was held with a well muscled forearm under his chin, pressing against his neck. Flynn brought his face so close to Halloran's their noses were almost touching. His breathing was labored and his green eyes flashed dangerously. "I don't give a fuck if it was Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick Himself that gave you your orders. Get the fuck out of here, Halloran!"

With a deft motion and a great growl, Flynn swept Halloran away from the doorframe and sent him hurtling into the hallway outside, where he landed unceremoniously on his ass. Flynn could only catch a glimpse of the newsboy's bewildered expression before he slammed the door shut with a great flourish. As much as he liked Halloran, he was not most important at the moment.

His expression softened and he immediately turned around, striding over to the mattress, crouching on his haunches beside Angel. Placing a firm hand on her shoulder, he began to quickly shake her awake. He knew time was precious. Angel groaned in protest as he shook her entire body. She murmured something indistinct in her sleep and buried her face even further within the depths of her slovenly, blood-caked hair.

"For God's sake, Angel, wake up." Flynn whispered, desperation beginning to infiltrate his voice. Despite his efforts, Angel still remained deep in the hold of slumber. Flynn fell to his knees on her mattress, and regarded her. She looked at peace for once, in sleep, and as much as he was loathe to wake her and set in motion the night's events that awaited her, he must. "Oh damn it all!" he muttered under his breath. He placed both arms around Angel, pulling her sharply into a sitting position. Still not awaking, Flynn clenched his teeth and brought his thumb and index finger to Angel's neck, pinching her viciously.

Angel's eyes fluttered open immediately and she released a small gasp. Flynn instantaneously put a hand over her mouth, stifling any other words she may have to say. He pulled her close to him on the mattress, bringing his mouth to her ear. His nose brushed her hair. It was lank and foul-smelling, tinged a brownish-red with remnants of blood. He involuntarily pulled her so close she was nearly on his lap. He elicited a sigh into her ear. He paused before he finally spoke.

"It is done."

Angel pulled away harshly. She gazed at him intensely, her grey eyes piercing through his soul. He felt his breath bate painfully in his throat.

She did not ask him the question he supposed she was dying to obtain from him. The corners of her lips curled, and a smile alighted upon them. The first smile he had seen in so very long…it was so beautiful…and as quickly as it had came, it was gone. Her lips once more drawn in a thin, pensive line.

She rose slowly to her haunches, and then to her feet, agonizingly slow, as though in an immense deal of pain. She was still only garbed in the same slashed, blood-stained button down she had been clothed in the night prior. Her legs were bare, feet shoeless.

"So, I'm guessing you are here to collect me for my brother's delight?" She was facing away from him, ambling over to a warped dresser a few feet away from the mattress.

"Yes, me and Halloran," Flynn replied automatically, as he watched her open the top drawer and fish out a pair of trousers and shirt.

"And just where is our dear friend, Hal Halloran?" she inquired, slipping one legs into the pants, then the other, before shimmying them up her thighs and snapping the buckle.

"Sprawled in the hallway," Flynn replied without thinking. Angel turned over her shoulder to gaze at him, her back still to him. She was unbuttoning the white shirt, ever so carefully. Once it was removed, she cast it to the floor without a thought, her back bare to him except for the pale yellow hair draped over it. She paused a moment, before slipping on the blue shirt with the short sleeves, and buttoning it. She turned to Flynn.

Flynn was grateful that he was spared the site of Oliver Haddox's penmanship on his sister's abdomen (I-A-M-A-B-R-O-O-K-L-Y-N-W-H-O-R-E). A wave of nausea passed over him, and he shut his eyes tightly, trying to subdue the horror of it all. When he opened them, Angel was standing before him, her hand offered down to him. Flynn instinctively took it, and she pulled him to his feet.

They stood, face to face, regarding each other. She had pulled her hair off her face in a half-hearted attempt at a ponytail. Flynn's hand immediately went to either side of Angel's head, to caress her hair, to feel the flakes of her very own blood peel off in his grasp. He felt horror, terror pass over him, and he fell into Angel, pulling her deeply into an embrace.

He did not know if this was the last time he would ever hold her alive. If this was the last time he would ever be able to speak those words to her…so he did.

"I love you, Angel Haddox," he whispered breathlessly into her hair.

Angel smiled briefly, a cynical smile, before pulling away from him. "It's Helena, Flynn. Helena Haddox," she replied softly, before her smile faltered, and she turned from Flynn, crossing her room before reaching the threshold. She paused a moment, her hand on the door knob, but did not turn back to Flynn.

She opened the door, hinges whining, and disappeared into the hallway like a whisper.

***

Oliver was already awaiting her as they descended into the foyer of the warehouse.

She had been flanked by Flynn and Halloran, but the steps were narrow, and they were unconsciously playing follow the leader down the stairs, Flynn in the front, Halloran bringing up the rear. Angel felt her stomach twist into a thousand impenetrable knots and blood run cold when she saw her brother's face appear over the back of Flynn's bright, bobbing head.

He was already surrounded by his Midtown goons, Night on his left. Night wore an impossibly smug smile, his thick, dark hair slicked back from his forehead with too much pomade. Oliver stood next to him, thin and tall and proud, arms crossed over chest. He had already been wearing that deep, murderously insane grin before Angel had come into his view.

They had descended the stairs, and stood before the crowd. Flynn was still positioned in front of Angel, as though to shield her somehow. She was not sure if he realized this gesture or not.

"Why my dearest sister and assassin, Angel of Death, so lovely you could join us this evening!" Oliver cackled, bowing crisply at the waist and motioning with his left arm in a sweeping gesture.

A cacophony of bawls rose in the muggy air as Oliver's words were the flame to ignite the match of the already intense excitement that each newsboy harbored. The room went to chaos.

Angel elicited a scream as Nero Night's stocky arm deftly snaked out and his hand formed a vice grip on her wrist. He hauled her forward, out from behind Flynn, with a tremendous force, causing her legs to falter and crash into him.

"Angel!" Flynn yelled, reaching out towards her. But his cries were drowned in the bellows of Oliver's boys. They swarmed around Angel, until she, Oliver, and Night were at the epicenter of the crush that was slowly shifting outside through the parlor door.

Pure fear surged through Angel at that moment, seeing the soon to be spectators begin to rowdily converge outside, out in the streets. Panic set in and adrenaline raced through her veins. She became wild, bucking and kicking against Night akin to a frightened animal. Night was forced to halt in the midst of the crowd, to attempt to wrest control of her again. Her forearms were slipping out of his oily grasp, and he tried to lock a firmer grip on her. "Knock it off, you dumb broad!" he yelped against her contorting body. She gave no heed, desperately writhing until she was able to shake off his sweaty clutch. She bolted forward into the fray, jostling past her brother's goons who paid surprisingly little attention to her as they swarmed into the streets beyond the warehouse—the sight outside must have been far too captivating.

She heard Night call her name from behind her laced with oaths, but she only pushed on, thrusting blindly through the swarm to finally squeeze through the warehouse door leading outside.

Angel immediately gasped as she reached outside the warehouse, her concentration broken. Cold raindrops were soon upon her skin. She looked to the sky. The evening sky was heavy and sated with dark rain clouds. A slight drizzle fell, wetting her cloths and matting her hair.

This was all Night needed, for he was once again upon her. His rough grip found her wrists, binding them behind her back. His forearm was locked around her neck in a death grip, a serrated hunting knife in his hand. He ferociously pressed the blade to her throat, drawing droplets of blood. She began a coughing spell, but he did not relent. His grip only grew tighter. His rain wet body pressed into hers. His mouth was to her ear, his nose pressing against the apex. His breath was foul when he spoke, the stink infiltrating Angel's nostrils.

"Let's see you escape now, you dumb bitch. Let's see you make a fool out of me now. Don't count on it twice. This is the end for you, bitch." Suddenly, his inflection changed. It was bright and borderline mad. "Did you get to see Conlon yet?" She didn't need to be looking at him to know a wide, malicious smile had alighted upon his lips, exposing his yellowed teeth. "Oh you didn't get to see him yet, Angel? I'm sure his Brooklyn whore wants to see him! Let's go see him!" His voice was high and maniacal. His arm locked harder around her throat, and she was pressed deeper into the crevices of his flabby chest. He started forward, and she had no choice but to go along with him, less so walking on her own accord than being dragged. He pushed forward until the crowd opened up, until she could finally see Conlon.

It was only then that he halted. Angel's legs buckled under her, and Night's grip grew more constricting, supporting her crumpled weight against him.

Conlon had been situated on some sort of makeshift scaffolding consisting of a few wooden crates haphazardly put together that had most likely been constructed earlier in the day. In the middle of the scaffold was a wooden pole, rising up to the height of Conlon's shoulders, which he stood before. His hands were bound behind his back to the pole with thick coils of rope. He stood proud and arrogantly, almost indignantly, his shoulders thrust back so that he was raised to his full height. His chin was lifted, and he stared straight forward, his gaze haughty under the numerous contusions and opened, bloody wounds that swathed his face.

The rain was falling harder now. His dirty blond hair was plastered to his head and the tatters of cloths that still remained on his body hung limp, saturated with droplets.

A sudden, impossibly strong wave of nausea passed over Angel, and she doubled over, forcing Night to relent his grasp on her throat some. She retched fiercely and vomited what little contents had been in her stomach onto her shoes. She felt light-headed and weak, and would have collapsed to the rain soaked ground if Night wouldn't have tightened her grip around her and brought her to her feet again. Seeing she was weakened, he pocketed the knife into his waistband, and held her to him close, an arm snaking around her waist. His free hand went to her face, brutally gripping her chin and bringing it close to his. His grin was utterly wild and frightening.

"You think this is bad, Angel? Just wait until you see what will happen to you," he whispered to her. She released a howl of helplessness and fell against him. The tears came hard and fast. He relished this and held her closer choosing his words carefully. "Oliver didn't say what was going to happen to you, but I know. You are all mine. Before you die, I will let everyone of the boys standing out here fuck you like the whore you are." She wailed and began to crumple, but he held her fast. His grip grew firmer on her chin. He was smiling. "Every single one of those boys, Angel, because that's all you are, aren't you, a Brooklyn whore? And when they are done fucking you, you will be mine. And when that happens, you wish you will be dead. Oh, don't worry, I won't fuck Brooklyn trash like you, but I will be with you until you breathe your last breath. However long that may take. I will be with you and you will wish you were dead. You thought what Oliver did to you was bad?" He pressed firmly on her abdomen, motioning to the inscription on her stomach, irritating the wounds." "Just wait until I am done with you, you stupid fucking cunt."

She grew faint, and her head lolled back, her crown resting on his shoulder. As if to seal her fate, his lips were on hers, his tongue intruding, in a deep kiss. She cried out on revulsion and began to buck against him. Night broke the embrace, and, erupting into wild gales of laughter, pushed her harshly to the ground. She fell in a crumpled pile to the street, splashing into a puddle, too weak to attempt to move or stand on her own. The rain pounded her back, chilling her to the bone.

She then heard a voice, Oliver's voice. It boomed over the crowd and coincided with a clap of thunder. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, should we commence tonight's entertainment?"

The Midtown crowd erupted into cries of pure blood lust.

"I would so love to introduce you to our guests of honor, but I am afraid one still must join us!" He shouted mockingly. "Night, will you please escort my dear sister to the stage!"

Angel felt a strong pair of arms link around her waist and pull her to her feet. Her head remained down, her matted hair hanging around her face. She was overcome with a fresh set of convulsions, when the gentle grasp pulled her back into a figure. Instead of the flaccid torso of Night she was welcomed by a muscular chest. A voice was in her ear; the owner's yellow hair limp from rain was brushing her cheek. "Helena, _they are here._"

Angel's tears instantly subsided, and she fell against Flynn Finesse. She raised her eyes, past the crowd, past Night, past Oliver, to Conlon.

He was staring at her.


	19. Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As quickly as Flynn had pulled her to her feet, she was soon wrested out of his grasp and into the indignant arms of Nero Night.

"What the hell are you, Finesse, fucking stupid or something?" he spat venomously as he once again brought Angel into his clutches. A hand on her wrist immobilized her arms behind her back, and the serrated knife made an appearance once more, this time the blade digging even more furiously into her throat, drawing fresh blood. She did not flinch. "Oliver said _I _was to get the dumb bitch, not _you_!"

The crowd was parted around the scene, and Flynn stood regarding Night incredulously, his chest heaving and drenched hair loose and hanging wildly around his face. He appeared as though he was ready to pounce on Night and beat him until no breath remained in his person, until Angel met his gaze. Something in her eyes calmed him, reassured him, and he bitterly held his tongue and his place to the ground.

Night did not witness the exchange, already forgetting about Flynn when he was gaining control of Angel. "Come on, you, dumb bitch, let's go," he muttered, driving her forward.

Angel compliantly agreed, and they had only gone a few steps when she cocked her head slightly and whispered, "Night."

He did not look down at her, only stared straight forward, determined to close the distance between them and the scaffolding as quickly as possible.

"Night," she whispered again, a bit louder.

"What?" he shot back, irritated, still not making eye contact with her.

Quickly she darted up and placed her lips to his hard, cracked ones. The kiss elicited catcalls from the crowd. Night quickly drew back, his eyes registering pure surprise. She regarded him with her lips drawn back into a coy smile.

"What the fuck was that for?" he spat.

The strange smile lingered. "I just want you to know, Night, that you will be dead within ten minutes."

Any mirthfulness that Night had reveled in a few moments ago had expired, and her words simply drew a scowl on his rain-slicked face. He did not meet her eyes as he pushed her roughly forward through the crowd towards the scaffolding. "Come on, get the fuck out of the way!" he peevishly snapped at newsboys that remained in his path.

When they reached at the crude, makeshift steps of the scaffolding, he paused for a brief moment at the base. She could feel his chest rising and falling quickly into her back, his expirations hard. She need not look upon him to comprehend what she had whispered to him had made him livid. She froze against him for a moment, tense, waiting for a reaction, albeit delayed.

It finally came when he hissed venomously into the rain, "You dumb bitch," while fluidly releasing his vice grip around her neck only to violently push her forward onto the scaffolding, but not before slicing a deep laceration across her cheek with the blade.

Angel collapsed onto the wooden scaffolding, the wind knocked out of her. Blood gushed down her cheek, hot and sticky, and she instinctively placed a hand to the wound. She drew it back only to see her palm and fingers covered with crimson blood.

Oliver would not be delayed from his pleasure any longer. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen! We can finally begin now that my dear, dear sister has joined us!"

The crowd erupted into wild hoots and hollers.

Angel propped herself up on an elbow to regard the scene. Oliver was working the scaffolding as though the entire event was some kind of bizarre, demented three ring circus and he himself was the ringmaster. Across the scaffolding, Conlon still stood bound, still tall and proud under the circumstances. His electric blue eyes were trained on Angel. Angel was so completely lost in his hard gaze that she had somehow tuned out the rest of the world.

It was Oliver that shattered the reverie. "…so now let us begin now that our two guests of honor have finally joined us! To my left, tied to the stake, may I introduce Midtown's Public Enemy Number One, The Fearless Leader of Brooklyn Himself: Spot Conlon!"

The crowd exploded into hisses and boos.

"And to my right may I introduce my dear, dear sister, The Angel of Death Herself: Angel Haddox!"

Angel slowly rose to her feet, wiping hot blood off her mouth as she stood. Her eyes were no longer locked on her brother or even Conlon at that point, but at the skyline the roofs of the surrounding vacant buildings created. Her eyes feverishly scanned them. Flynn had told her that _they were here_, but she still could not see anything but bare, empty roofs.

Her attention was brought back to the scene before her only when Nero Night approached her from behind once again, ushering her further towards the center of the scaffolding. Angel didn't resist this motion, she was still too preoccupied glancing at the roofs intermittently, hoping and praying inside for some sign of somebody…._anybody…_

A revolver was suddenly shoved into her hand. She stared down at it. It was the shade of obsidian, and glimmered menacingly in the downpour. Angel unhinged the chamber.

Only one round was chambered.

She glanced up. Oliver was staring at her—staring _through _her—his black eyes glittering like shards of glass. His thin lips were drawn back in a smile, his jagged teeth bared.

"Time to get the show on the road, dear sister," he grinned.

He turned toward the crowd. "Gentlemen, I believe we have taken too long already as it is…_let's kill the motherfucker already!" _he screamed through a clap of thunder, his voice high and insane. The swarm's uniform cacophony of agreement with their leader rose into the late summer sky.

The events from that moment forward unfolded in a hazy blur to Angel. The bloodlust howls of the newsboys only added to the surreal quality of the moment. Angel found herself front and center on the scaffolding, rain beating down on her, and grip limp on the revolver at her side. Oliver had strode to a side of the scaffolding to take his place now that his duties of emcee were postponed for the time being. Night was beside him, his expression hard and eyes glowing with hatred. His arms were extended taut before him, his gleaming pistol cocked and levied point blank at Angel's forehead. She regarded the black emptiness of the barrel, and had to bite her tongue to bridle a hysterical laugh. So this was Oliver's great back up plan if she copped out? Nero Night mortally wounding her? Surely he could entertain his guests in a more spectacular way than that!

Her eyes slipped past the pair for a moment to the crowd of newsboys. Flynn stood amongst them, nearest to the scaffolding. His wide, bright eyes were not on the grotesque scene playing out the makeshift stage, but instead were gazing past Angel, locked aloft. His cheeks were flushed a maddening red and eyes too bright. His chest rose and fell too rapidly, his inhalations and exhalations almost to the point of hyperventilation it seemed.

Angel quickly snapped her head in the direction he had been staring. Her gaze fell upward to the rooftop of a deserted building that sat opposite the warehouse. For the briefest second, she saw a flash of movement on the vacant structure's roof, only to disappear as quickly as it had begun. In this kind of downpour with visibility so dramatically decreased, it could have truly been anything or perhaps nothing at all--merely an illusion of the rain--but it was enough to turn Angel's blood white hot.

She immediately turned her head forward once more, her gaze falling on Conlon. His gaze was trained upon the same rooftop for a brief moment before interlocking with hers. His eyes were unnaturally wild and luminescent under the numerous bruises—as though an internal fire scorched behind them. They bored into her soul. A slight smirk flitted across his lips, before disappearing. He had seen it too. He knew they were there also.

It seemed to Angel that the moment would last for an eternity…that they were the only two people in the entire universe…unknowingly a slight smile alighted upon her lips, reciprocating his.

"_Angel Haddox_!" Oliver's voice sliced through the downpour, shattering her reverie and diverting her attention to him. He still stood off to the side of the scaffold, Night still at his side, his pistol cocked and pointed at Angel's head. "Let it be announced by I, Oliver Lucius Haddox, Leader of Midtown, that you, Spot Conlon, Leader of Brooklyn, are have been hereby found guilty of high treason of Midtown. You are to die for your crimes…and for my own personal amusement to see a bullet lodged in your motherfucking Brooklyn head and brains scattered everywhere into little bitty pieces. Now, Mr. Conlon, before my dear sister finally puts you out of your misery…do you have any last words?"

Angel turned to Conlon once more, stared at him through the rain. Night's obsidian shroud was quickly enveloping the surroundings in an inky blackness. The rain poured down hard, and heavy, but she could somehow still see into those burning blue eyes perfectly. He stared directly at her, for what likely only lasted a fleeting moment, but for Angel seemed like eternity. His smoldering gazed burned into her soul. For some unknown reason, she felt hot tears prick the corners of her eyes. She held her arms taut before her and raised the gun, levying the barrel point blank with his beautiful face. He need not say a word…and just on pure instinct she knew what to do. She cocked the trigger, heard the click of the bullet chambering. Tears pouring down her cheeks, she squeezed her left eye closed and with her right eye, her shooting eye, stared down the nose of the barrel past the dark murkiness of the rain and into his eyes…

_Because I can see it. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it in your eyes today. I saw fear in your eyes. You're not one of them. You want more. But you're scared shitless. Scared shitless. You want to die in this life you created for yourself, you don't know who the hell you've become. But you don't die because you think somehow you can always go back to the past, that the future will be brighter. You bitch, you fucking murderous bitch, you are the same as me._

..and waited.

Spot Conlon, unceremoniously tethered to a stake that marked the site of his impending death, and body broken and bruised, turned towards his capturer, a calm, calculated grin alighting upon his lips and his eyes unnaturally bright. He stared at Oliver Haddox for a few moments through the rain, before he threw his head back and parted his lips.

"BROOKLYN!"

The words rang clear and true through the downpour and echoed off the roof tops.

Angel fluidly shifted the aim of the gun, not even consciously thinking while performing the gesture, pointing the revolver in the direction of her brother.

"BROOKLYN!"

She squeezed the trigger, the kick back of the revolver genuinely surprising her, causing her to stumble where she stood and nearly topple backward. She heard the explosion of the gun, and a few moments later the loud thud of some heavy object collapsing to the scaffolding.

"BROOKLYN!"

The first of the whizzing noises permeated the air, accentuated by the claps of thunder. Something small and hard struck Angel in the thigh. The pain was outstanding. She released an ear-splitting scream and toppled forward, more whizzing noises filling her ears.

"BROOKLYN!"

She hit the scaffolding hard, elbows taking most of the blow. A few feet in front of her lay the crumpled form of Nero Night. He was on his belly, skin pale and mouth open akin to some kind of land-stranded fish gasping for oxygen. The bullet had entered his skull just near the hairline on the left side of his forehead. The bullet wound entrance seeped dark red blood, trickling down his brow and pooling on the scaffolding. The bullet must have lodged in his skull since his brain was not blown of his head. Her usually immaculate aim had been off. She had missed Oliver Haddox by a mere few inches.

"BROOKLYN!"

The world then fell to chaos around Angel. Although not seeing, she knew Flynn had been correct in ascertaining that Brooklyn had come to the rescue of their master. The sounds of the deadly glass marbles they shot from the roof tops filled her ears and she could hear their cries of war. Shouts of confusion had began to break out around her ever since Night's corpse had hit the ground, and now gun fire was beginning to ring out.

But Angel did not take heed to any of this utter pandemonium. She lifted her head and stared before her. Conlon was still strapped to the stake, thrashing furiously against his binding. She struggled blindly to her feet, pushing off in a run towards him.

"Spot!" she screamed. He glanced at her briefly before her view of him was blocked by a massive form. Hennery, the great hulking mass that had pinned her to the table while Oliver's penmanship seared her belly, stood before her. His white shirt was plastered to his strong chest, rendered see-through due to the rain, and lips pulled back into a malicious grin. He wielded Night's serrated hunting knife.

"Come on bitch, come on," he taunted, hunkering down a fighting stance, "Come get me."

Angel's blood ran white hot, her face blanched, and her vision became fielded with a hazy redness. She prepared to pounce upon him, weaponless and defenseless, when she heard a familiar voice scream through the bedlam.

"ANGEL!"

She turned briefly to find Flynn temporarily broken from hand to hand combat with a Midtown newsie. Jerkily, he pulled back an arm and released it, sending an object skittering through the air, before he was overtaken again. The object landed on the scaffolding. Two sets of eyes fell upon on it—Angel's and Hennery's. They were both still a moment, taking in the object—Flynn's switch—before instinct kicked in and they both dove for it. Angel, though, had the most acute reflexes of the two, for she hit the scaffolding, swiping the switch into her grasp and tumbling out of the way just as Hennery landed on his belly where the switch had lain.

She rolled onto her stomach, switch in hand, and raised up her head. Hennery was in a push-up stance, ready to push off the ground, glowering at her and eyes filled with hate. "Come get me bitch."

The overpowering hatred that had been festering in her bowels finally exploded, emancipating itself in the form of a superb scream as Angel pushed herself off the ground, lunging at Hennery. He was fast, and deftly rolled onto his back as he saw her coming for him. Placing his palms flat and feet up, he was able to push off her stomach, and send her flying over his head. Angel hit the scaffolding with a thud, with hardly any breath knocked out of her. She snapped her head up. Hennery was rising to his feet, still crouched. He caught her gaze, and grinned, baring his yellowed teeth. "I was wondering Haddox, what it's gonna be like to rape you."

She released a screech of fury, pouncing for Hennery. But he overestimated her. Instead of striking high, she struck low, drawing her arms back and thrusting the switch into his booted foot with all her might. Hennery released an agonizing bellow of pain and genuine surprise and he bent down, groping for the switch embedded in his foot. Angel saw her chance that Hennery's guard was down, and, pulling herself to a kneeling position, wrested Night's hunting knife away from him. Hennery realized his fault all too late, for when is hands blindly grasped for the knife all they wrapped around was air. Angel didn't even think twice before she released a magnificent scream and, raising her arms high, drove the blade into his right eye. The blade found its target superbly, and as Hennery fell back, screaming in anguish, she only twisted the blade in the socket, eliciting more cries from him.

"_You motherfucker! You motherfucker! Now let's see who's going to get raped! Now let's see who's going to die!" _

Gripping the hilt with both hands, she pulled the blade out of the cavity with all her might, eliciting a grotesque sucking sound as she did so. Gripping a thatch of Hennery's hair with one hand, she jerked his head back, raising the chin and exposing the neck, as his body writhed on the ground. Her eyes hard and cold, she brought the blade down to his sun-burnt, dirt fleck throat and pressed in the blade as hard as she could, slicing him ear to ear. The black blood flowed immediately from the wound, cascading over her hands and pooling around her. She instantly stood up, and looked away from Hennery as his body thrashed on the scaffolding, in the last throes of life. She didn't seem to realize his blood clung to her hands and saturated the bottoms of her pants of had splattered onto her shirt.

She only looked away to him. Or perhaps it was only him that she cared to see.

Conlon still struggled against his binding. Nero Night—when he was alive—had been excellent at tying impenetrable knots. She covered the distance between them in a few heartbeats and she was behind him, one hand grasping his bound wrists, the other holding the blade that had killed Hennery.

"_Haddox! Haddox! When the fuck did you do all this? How did they know to come?"_ he yelled over the rain, looking over his shoulder to her.

The blade sliced into the rope bindings like butter and his tethering fell unceremoniously to the ground. She threw his hands down, and he held them aloft in front of him, skinned and raw, as though to reassure himself that he was indeed actually free.

"Flynn," she replied, looking into his eyes, pushing her matted hair off her face, tainting it with Hennery's blood. "I told Flynn and he's so goddamned stupid he listened to me. He went to Brooklyn and he let them know."

A smile flitted across Conlon's lips and his eyes burned bright. He placed his hands on either side of her head, his fingers tangling into her rain-soaked hair. "You crazy bitch. You stupid, crazy bitch. You did all that for me?"

She stood there, in the down pour on the scaffolding meant for his execution, looking into his burning blue eyes, and found she had no voice. The words that she longed to say (what did she long to say?) died as soon as they reached her lips. Alas, somehow or another, he drew her pulled her head close to his and forced his lips to hers. Her eyes closed and her knees buckled underneath her, but his grip grew more forceful and he drew her so close to him that she could feel every plane of his hard, rain-slicked chest.

Her brain exploded in her head, akin to Nero Night's as the bullet entered his skull, she surmised. She fell against him and let him envelop her. What she felt was forbidden, like when Eve listened to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden…but it tasted so wonderful…

It was soon shattered though, as Angel felt a tortuous pain erupt in her calf. She elicited a shriek of distress, before her leg buckled from under her and she collapsed. Conlon held her weight and eased her slowly to the ground. She gazed at her calf. The gray material of her pants was already soaked with blood and marred with a bullet hole.

Angel heard the clicking of a gun and a pair of familiar black shoes came into view. A recognizable voice filled her ears through the cacophony, cold, clear, and calculated.

"A thousand apologies for breaking up this heartwarming scene, but, my dear sister, you really couldn't forget about your dear brother now, could you?"


	20. Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The pain ripped through her body, in all its agonizing expedience. The muscle in her calf was partially severed, and she struggled to her feet halfheartedly, much akin to a newborn foal. She screamed in unbridled anguish as her legs collapsed beneath her, crumpling her at the feet of Spot Conlon. He hunkered down over her, instinctively scooping her into the protective grasp of his arms.

This gesture elicited a merry, tinkling laugh from Oliver, and he took a step closer to the pair. His grip on the pistol grew tauter, as he directed it at a downward angle, aimed point blank at them. "You stupid, insipid cunt," he intoned, his voice darkening. "What would our dear mother say to this? You..fucking Brooklyn trash? She would have been so…disappointed…in how you turned out, Angel love." A corner of his mouth twisted into a sneer and he fluidly drew back phlegm in his throat, before spitting upon Angel.

She could feel his sour mucous strike her face, even through the rain. It was at that moment that Angel lost her sanity, and she was thrust into the abysses of madness. The blood coursed through her veins, a scorching white hot. Her mind turned to a jumble, all reasonable thoughts lost upon her, and her body began to act on primal flight or fight instinct alone.

It chose for her to fight.

"_You murderer! You murderer! You fucking murderer! You killed her! You killed her! "_ With a sudden surge of newfound energy, she was to her feet, despite the excruciating tearing of muscle as she lunged for him. Oliver had not been expecting such a reaction, and did not have time to counter her force. With all her being, she pounced upon him, pushing him brutally backward onto the hard wood of the scaffolding. His back hit the scaffolding with a sick crack, she falling on top of him. The pistol fell out of his grasp, striking the scaffolding and skittering a few feet from where they lay.

"_You killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her you killed her!" _She was babbling shrieks of incoherency at this point. Her legs straddling him and her blood-strewn hair falling into her face, she desperately brought her hands to his face, scratching and clawing for anything in her haze of lunacy. While her brother was still in a fleeting state of dumbfoundness, Angel's grasp cradled his temples on either side, and, as her thumbs found his eyes, she dug into the orbital cavity with all her might. She could feel the thumb of her left hand penetrate and break through an aqueous, soft mass and then, suddenly wetness.

She had crushed his left eye and the blood began to pour from the damaged cavity, hot and red over her hands, and she only pressed further, deeper.

The sheer trauma to his eye brought some semblance of sense back to Oliver, for he elicited an exquisite howl of pain, and, rolled to his side, thrusting Angel off of him and to the scaffolding. He was to his feet in an instant, hands covering his damaged eye, blood streaming through his fingers and down his face. His equilibrium appeared off for a moment, as he stood, wobbling, and shrieking in anguish.

"_You bitch! You fucking bitch! I'll kill you! I'll kill you and gut you like a pig! I'll kill you just like your fucking cunt mother!"_

Her body tensed, and she was poised to lunge at him again, when she felt a strong pair of arms come from behind, and envelope her, driving her backwards into a hard, rain-soaked chest. "This is not your fight anymore, Helena. Let Brooklyn have his go."

Flynn's voice filled her ear canal, warm and hot, and his loosened, matted hair brushed her face. She fell against him with a sob, and she allowed the pain from the Oliver's bullet to finally consume her. Flynn scooped her into his arms in an instant, lithely flinging her over his shoulder as he bounded off the scaffolding and onto the cobbled stones of the street.

Angel was absolutely oblivious to the fact that Flynn still was engaging in hand to hand combat with the other Midtown newsies with a switch as she lay strewn over his shoulder. She could only view the scene before her through the tangles of her hair in utter horror.

In the most unadulterated terms, this is what the whole war came down to. Brooklyn and Midtown. A boy so jealous of a man for being what he could never be that he would stop at no cost until the man and everything he loved was utterly decimated.

It was Conlon and Oliver, as they should be, finally face to face and alone on the platform amidst all the chaos around them. Conlon had somehow purloined Oliver's gleaming ebony pistol out from under him sometime when Angel had knocked him to the ground. He held it, his agile arms outstretched with the barrel directed point blank at her brother. He was absolutely riveting in the dousing rain; his broken body rigid, erect, and tall, and his eyes burning like blue fire under the bruises. The dirty blond hair was soaked, plastered to his head. His lips were held in a tight, grim scowl.

Oliver was making a wide circle around Conlon, a hand still clasped over his missing eye. The blood, rendered black by the night, cascaded through his fingers, down his face, and onto his person, saturating through his clothes. Conlon turned in place, never taking his eyes or aim off of Oliver's head.

There was suddenly a sharp shove, as a newsboy drove himself into Flynn's shoulder, whether unintentionally or not. Flynn released a cry, and against his will lost his balance, sending Angel tumbling to the ground. Her head took the brunt of the fall, striking the rain-slicked ground and causing her to elicit a guttural groan. Remarkably, her conscious was not lost, and she lolled onto her back, stars bursting before her eyes. Flynn and the other newsboy performed their dance of mortal combat around her, their booted feet mere quarters of an inch from her face, amazingly not trouncing her somehow. She was ignorant to this, and to all engaging in warfare around her. She trained her gaze upward, to lay eyes on Conlon and Oliver once more.

Though, this time they were upside down. And Conlon had lost control of the weapon, and it lay somewhere on the scaffolding in the darkness. Oliver had charged at him, using his head as some sort of ram, crashing into Conlon's stomach and nearly driving him off the scaffolding. Conlon was left dazed for a few moments by the blow, doubling over and placing his hands over his abdomen, backtracking for a few unsteady steps.

Oliver used the few precious moments to his advantage. He finally released his hand from the site of his wound, and was scanning the scaffolding with his one good eye for what seemed like, something, anything. His chest rose and fell rapidly with quick breaths. The rain intermixed with the blood that ran down his face from the raw, bloodied cavity, coloring it an almost pinkish hue. And finally the scanning halted, and his gaze fell upon something that lay on the scaffolding. Angel flipped onto her stomach, desperately pushing herself up onto her elbows as she saw his eyes train on the object. He was upon it in a moment.

The blade flashed momentarily. It was Night's serrated hunting knife that Oliver now held in his clutch. The blade that killed Hennery. The blade that had freed Conlon.

Oliver was crouched now, his gaze sited upon Conlon, lips pulled into a snarl and every muscle in his body taut. Conlon was still recovering from the blow to the stomach that Oliver had dealt him earlier, and did not even realize Oliver was lunging at him…

"_Spot!" _Angel did not even realize that the words possessed in the magnificent scream were being uttered from her lips. At her warning, Spot snapped his head up quickly. With a cry, he side stepped Oliver just in time. Oliver regained his balance quickly, turning toward Conlon, baring his teeth and brandishing the blade. He jabbed the blade at Conlon, and Conlon twisted away, the blow cutting through the air where his torso had been.

Angel struggled to her feet, pushing off the slick cobble stones, ignoring the heated pain in her leg. She violently fought her way past the warring newsboys, attempting with all her might to push them out of the way if necessary to reach the scaffolding. She flattened out quickly to slide between the backs of a Brooklyn boy and a Midtown thug to reach the wooden platform.

A burst of lightening streaked through the humid summer sky, briefly illuminating the scene before her. Oliver struck Conlon with the blade as swiftly as a cobra would its prey. The blade dug deep into the flesh of his shoulder leaving a massive tear in the fabric of his drenched shirt. The sanguine blood came suddenly and furiously, streaking out of the wound and down his arm. Conlon elicited a sharp cry, and brought his opposing hand to his injured shoulder.

Oliver released a shriek of murderous rapture.

"_Spot_!" Angel yelped, struggling to the scaffolding and hurrying upon it.

Oliver had lost his sanity by now, and he was shouting incomprehensible phrases into the rain sated sky. His jagged teeth were bared in a maniacal smile, stained a dim red from the blood. His good eye wore a lunatic's gleam, and the socket where the left eye had been stared back at her gaping and bloodied by flecks protruding flesh.

Angel's eyes hurriedly scanned the scaffolding, searching for anything, when her gaze fell upon the expired hunk of meat that had been Hennery. A black hilt protruded from his booted foot. Her breath bated painfully in her throat and her heart began racing so that her body began to physically shake. She looked quickly back to Conlon and Oliver. Oliver had thrust the blade at him, leaving a splendid slice of cut flesh across his upper chest. Conlon elicited a noise, a sound Angel could not bear to hear. It was a noise blended with unfathomable pain, and weariness, and worst of all...that of a broken soul.

Angel inhaled sharply, her body shuttering with fear, and knew that if things continued this way, that it would be over soon…that somehow Oliver, in the end, would have won over them anyway…

She dove. Pushing off her feet with a cry, she sailed through the air, her brother's back to her, and hit the scaffolding with a thud, landing just a few feet from Hennery's corpse and into a pool of his congealing black blood. She released a small, repulsed noise, Hennery's blood clinging to her face, hair, and clothes, she hauled herself the remaining distance to his body. On her belly, both her hands found the smooth hilt of the switch, and, with all her might, she pulled the blade from his boot.

She rolled onto her side, the hilt of the blade raised aloft over her head to survey the scene. Conlon had landed a good blow to Oliver's cheek, but he simply retaliated, drawing the blade across Conlon's face, slashing deeply into the bridge of his nose.

It was now or never, her brain raced, now or never. Slithering on her belly, she pulled herself across the scaffolding, closing the distance between Oliver and she. Her brother was too engrossed in battle with Conlon to even realize her presence.

With the silent dexterity of a trained assassin, she swung her arm out to her side, before letting it rip forward before her, the blade slicing through the back of Oliver's ankle. His Achilles' tendon rolled up like a Venetian blind into his calf. Oliver released an inhuman cry of agony before his balance gave way and he crashed to the scaffolding. He was on his side, and his jerked his curled knee into his chest, attempting to soothe away the pain.

Angel overpowered him effortlessly, throwing him onto his back and tossing her legs on either side of him, straddling him.

"_You bitch!"_ he screamed shrilly beneath her, wildly bucking underneath her akin to a wild animal in its death throes and desperately attempting to claw at her face. "_I'll kill you, you fucking bitch, I'll kill you and cut your fucking throat just like I did your fucking cunt mother!" _

The felt the furious insanity well inside the abysses of her stomach again, and she was poised to strike him, when her outstretched hand fell upon something cold and hard. She glanced quickly down and noticed her fingers were on Oliver's obsidian pistol that he had lost in the fray with Conlon.

And suddenly her mind became incredibly lucid. She took the gleaming weapon, slowly, meticulously, in her grasp, and brought it before her, staring at it briefly before averting her gaze to her only living flesh and blood. His had ceased his thrashings momentarily and gaped at her, his good eye wide and the bloody hole staring back at her. She held the pistol not in the normal stance she had when she had used such a weapon as an assassin for her brother, but this time, she turned the weapon away from her, holding the barrel in the tight grip of her palms.

She did not utter any last words to her kin, only stared down at him with cold gray eyes, before she brought the butt of the gun ferociously down upon his head. It seemed he was about to release a scream, but any noise died on Oliver's lips as the metal struck his brow with the first devastating blow, fracturing the initial bit if skull.

She brought down the pistol repeatedly, harder and faster and with more fervor with each strike. The second time she cracked his nose, decimating it. The third time it crashed down onto the already shattered frontal bone, decimating it completely. She continued this until she was tired and wasted, until his screams were silenced, until his body stopped quivering under her, and until his head was an unrecognizable, decimated pulp of blood, bone, and brain.

She stopped, and realized only then that she was, and had been, screaming at the top of her lungs. Screams damning her brother, and screams imploring God to save her immortal soul. Screams to her mother, and screams to her father.

These screams only halted when she felt a pair of hands resting softly on either of her shoulders. She looked down to the pistol, her brother's pistol that had decimated his head, covered in his brain and blood and bone.

She began to shake uncontrollably, a force that wrought itself through her with such reckless abandon the only pillars of strength that kept her upright were the hands on her shoulders. "_Oh God," _whispered, looking to the gun. "_Oh God!" _screamed into the night, her gaze falling from the gun to the corpse of her brother and back again.

With a swift hurl, she flung the gun to her side, where it landed with a silent clatter no one took notice to amidst the chaos of the battle. Her vision was beginning to blacken before her eyes, and she felt a sudden need to disgorge all contents of her stomach.

"_Oh, God_," she gurgled. She inhaled a sharp, painful, breath that lodged in her throat, and she felt consciousness begin to leave her, when the hands vacated her shoulders, and a strong set of arms found themselves under her arms. They brought her to her unsteady feet in an erratic, abrupt motion, only to turn her around suddenly.

Awareness found Angel once more as a hand was brought roughly across her face, brutally striking her. Her eyes fluttered open, and her vision focused to Conlon standing mere inches from her face. His furious eyes were narrowed, brows furrowed. The wound riding the bridge of his nose gushed blood that cascaded down his face. His entire body quivered, his breathing was hard.

She could only stare into the abysses of those dark blue eyes that had entranced her and haunted her dreams and nightmares from the very first moment that she had met the Leader of Brooklyn. What else could she do? How could her brain possibly surmise into words all the emotions that she had felt and that she felt now towards him? How could she possibly tell him that he had been right…that there still had been time…and that now she was no longer the Angel of Death…but Helena Haddox…and he had been the catalyst in all of this…in everything? How could she possibly articulate into meaningless words that she knew in the deepest chasms of her soul that he was her soul mate, her kindred spirit? How could she possibly express the undying, devotional love that she had, and would always have, for this man that had saved her in every possible way a human could be saved?

Alas, she could not, and did not. She could only stand amidst the summer storm in his rough embrace, a mute imbecile, hot tears pouring down her face and sobs raking her body.

At her tears, his facial expression softened somewhat, and a spark ignited behind those eyes, causing them to glitter like shards of glass. His palm found her cheek, and he regarded her somberly. In a soft voice he said to her, "Helena, your purpose here is finished. It is Brooklyn's duty to finish this war. Get out of here."

The words stuck her akin to an arrow to the heart. Angel regarded him incredulously. "_Get out of here? You want me to get out of here? That's all you can say to me? That's all you can say to me?"_

A shadow passed over his face, and any softness his countenance had held vanished, to be replaced by the hard planes once more. The eyes flashed dangerously. "Get out of here, Haddox!" he growled, pushing her ferociously away.

Angel elicited a cry as she fell backward into the darkness, striking the drenched wooden boards of the scaffolding with her back. The wind momentarily stolen from her lungs, she woozily pulled herself to a sitting position, her blurry vision locked upon Conlon. He was bending hastily at the waist, hurriedly retrieving an object from the scaffolding. He stood straight once again and now she could easily see what was in his grasp.

He held between his hands the pistol that Angel had used to bash in her brother's head. He held the barrel upward to the sky, and sinuously cocked the trigger, verifying that bullets were still chambered.

"_Spot!" _she desperately screamed, her voice raw and hoarse. She frantically attempted to struggle to her feet. "_Spot!" _

"_I said get the fuck out of here, Haddox!" _he bellowed over his shoulder, before leaping off the scaffolding and into the skirmish. She heard the gun erupt over the chaos, and the hulking mass of a Midtown newsie crumpled to the ground.

Conlon released a howl of glee.

"_Spot!" _she softly croaked, her voice leaving her. She strained futilely to rise to her feet, yet her torn calf would always buckle underneath her. _"Spot!"_

"Helena! Helena! Oh Christ, Helena, thank God you are still alive!" The panicked words came from behind, hot and soft and familiar.

Flynn. It was Flynn.

Her head fell back in defeat. She knew he was here to take her away.

His arms were around her, and in a heartbeat he had her lifted into them off the ground, where her body hung limply like a rag doll.

"We are getting out of here…_now, Helena!" _

And he had leapt off the scaffolding, and they were darting through the rain, the warring figures of Midtown and Brooklyn growing smaller with each stride.

Angel could only allow her head to hand pathetically, her gaze solely locked upon Conlon. He was clashing with a Midtown newsie, but he glanced up and caught her gaze. His eyes were sparking and a wild smile adorned his lips.

Brooklyn was alive.

And soon the gaze was disconnected, and Conlon was lost in the skirmish. The figures of the newsies in combat were growing dimmer and dimmer until finally they disappeared altogether as Flynn stole through the alley way of two vacant buildings.

Angel turned her head forward once more, and closed her eyes, the thudding of Flynn's boots against the cobble stones echoing in her ears and Conlon's electric eyes searing the infinite blackness behind her closed lids.


	21. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

"Chicago: five minutes til departure! Chicago: five minutes til departure!"

The announcer's voice was booming, quite audible above the hushed cacophony of Grand Central Station.

A man who had been nervously pacing a small section of the passenger waiting area with long strides, abruptly stopped, and fumbled a small, weatherworn pocket watch from his breast pocket. Five til six. The train was still precisely on schedule. He replaced the watch to its rightful place in his pocket and elicited a long exhalation. Good, good, he thought, though his expression remained somber.

He was a handsome man, as handsome as any other of the young gentlemen in the bustling Station. His tall, lanky form was covered in a three-piece cream colored tweed suit, only showing its true weather-weariness when viewed up close. His feet were clad in a pair of black shoes, the scuff marks not noticeable from far away. A cream colored bowler hat sat atop his head, and the shock of blond hair was pulled neatly into a queue tied with a velvet ribbon. The hat casted a shadow over his otherwise attractive visage, and the man did not notice that more than one set of eyes from young girls in the train station was cast upon him. He wore the hat low for a reason, for that way the pretty girls were not able to notice from afar the multiple scratches and lacerations riding his fair features, or take heed to the spectacular shiner that had developed over his right eye.

Indeed, the man knew what he was, and he took great care to conceal his identity.

He drew in another deep breath, and turning his eyes to a person sitting quietly on a bench, made his way over to her. He sat beside her, placing a heavy arm around her, drawing her close to him. The woman was very pretty, indeed. She was clad in a rose-hued bustle dress, perhaps not of the current style from France, but not enough to catch anyone's eye except for those women inclined towards forward fashion. Her blonde hair was pulled back in to a neat, but hasty, style upon her head. A tiny hat the same color as the dress was perched upon her head, emphasizing the appealing face that was just perhaps a bit tanned too much by the summer's sun to render her truly one of the upper crust.

To the numerous others that mulled about the Station, waiting to catch their train, at a quick sideways glance, one would only think of them as a young married couple, perhaps waiting to visit family upstate on this humid Sunday morning. Nothing more, nothing less.

Indeed, the attractive pair was a young married couple, but a couple not visiting family. They were fugitives on the run.

The man hastily checked his pocket watch again. Only two more minutes until the train boarded.

He nudged the woman beside him gently with his shoulder, who had seemed to be drifting in and out of slumber. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Only two more minutes, Helena," he said softly.

She regarded him with an insolently cocked brow, as though she perturbed for being awaken. "That's nice, Flynn," she replied dreamily, her eyes already shutting once more. She was caught off guard when he brutally jerked her head off his shoulder. She regarded him, eyes widened. "What the hell did you do that for?"

The ferocity of his green stare held her rapt attention. The glittering eyes were narrowed into slits. "What did I tell you, Helena, you cannot address me as that in public until we are at least out of New York," he hissed through clenched teeth.

She elicited a weary sigh, and her gaze drifted from his and fell to the feet of the passengers bustling before her. "Oh, right," she murmured, her voice catatonic.

His appellation was still indeed Flynn, but ever since slipping into the darkness and away from the war last night had deemed them fugitives of Brooklyn, he had been adamant she call him by his Christian name and no longer by the name the streets had bestowed upon him.

She, also, had changed her name to his, when she took his name during a rushed marriage ceremony that had taken place sometime during the early morning hours. Throughout his tenure doing odd jobs at various places, Flynn had made some connections, and those connections seemed to pay off very well when one needed to leave town in a hurry.

She glanced down at the two train tickets he held tightly in his grasp. She could just make out the name scrawled on one of them. _Mr. Conrad Flynn…_

He had said it would be easier to escape town unnoticed if they were already married and if she already carried his name. She tended to agree, fewer questions asked if they were an actual married couple…

Her reverie was shattered a moment later as his lips found her ear, his nose gently touching the apex. "Helena," he said softly, "It's time for us to board."

"Oh," she replied automatically. She began to rise to het feet from the bench, when an unmistakably hot pain from her injured calf rushed to her brain. She elicited a small cry, and collapsed onto the bench once more, into his waiting arms.

She had almost forgotten about her bum leg. Flynn had been able to have a doctor he had known from his stint in Queens examine it last night, and he had extracted the bullet and bound her lower leg with a bandage, but the muscle still had to heal, and due to that she was still unable to properly bear weight on her leg.

Since they carried no luggage, he was able to effortlessly scoop her up into her arms, and cross the Station to where the train for Chicago awaited.

"I just need you to take the tickets." He flashed her a grin, and his eyes glittered, the one off-set by the shiner more so it seemed.

She took the tickets in her gloved hands, and her eyes scanned over to them. _6am departure from New York to Chicago_, they both read. Only his read _Mr. Conrad Flynn. _And hers read _Mrs. Helena Flynn. _

They finally reached their destined car, and Flynn whispered to her, "Give him the tickets, Hel."

She dutifully handed the tickets over to the ticket taker, who cast a wary look to Flynn.

"She's in a delicate condition, you understand?" he said without missing a beat.

Realization washed over the man's face, and a smile crossed his lips. "Ah!" he cried, casting Flynn a knowing wink. He ripped off the tops of both tickets and handed them back.

Flynn returned the man a thin smile, and started down the car hallway that was flanked by cushy looking seats on either side. "Ah, here we are," he murmured aloud as he espied the seat numbers correlating with the tickets. He gently placed her in the seat nearest to the window, and took the seat beside her. Her body immediately sank into the crimson velveteen seats, the same color of blood; the same color blood that had belonged to…

Flynn elicited an audible sigh and stretched his long arms out over his head, before popping off his bowler hat and placing it under the seat. The queue was beginning to fail in its battle to control his hair, and bright strands fell across his brow. He regarded her with a smile, his green eyes glimmering.

She looked away from him and to the window, her lips drawn in a pensive line.

He sold his plan to her easily as a snakes oil salesman hoodwinks the public into purchasing his dubious wares. He recited it so passionately, so meticulously that when he had first shared it with her, it caused her to wonder how long he had had that plan locked up in the secret corners of his mind.

He had been saving every little cent he had collected for years, that now he had collected a quaint sum of money. The first step had been to be married, but that was the easy part. The next parts involved a grandfather in Chicago that Flynn had not spoken to in quite some time, but whom he could count on if he ever ran afoul of trouble. The clothes had been hastily purchased, and the train tickets with even greater haste, for it was a tacit acknowledgement between them that they were both now fugitives of Brooklyn, and most likely had a bounty on their heads.

Although she knew Conlon would never dare harm her (or would he?) he could not pardon Angel Haddox and Flynn Finesse for their crimes against Brooklyn. Now that Midtown had fell and Brooklyn once again rightly reigned supreme, the fallen Oliver Haddox's former assassins were no longer beings to be feared. They were beings now to be hated, and hunted, and brought to justice for their atrocities against Brooklyn.

Conlon had granted her escape once. She knew he would not be able to promise it once more.

The train was whistling and the conductor was shouting in the background…perhaps the train was departing the station? Her query was confirmed as she felt the first tug of the engine hauling the shuttering train out of Grand Central Station.

She turned towards Flynn, (_Mr. Flynn_, that was), only to find that he was already peacefully dosing. He had shucked off his suit jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt. The powerful, sun-tanned arms rested on his chest and his hands were folded together. His head lolled to one side, his breathing rhythmic. She smiled in spite of herself and placed a gloved hand to his cheek, running her thumb over his swollen black shiner. His cat-like eyes opened at the touch and he regarded her.

"I love you, Helena."

The corner of her mouth turned up in a smile, and she tucked a strand of loose hair behind his ear. "Go back to sleep Flynn."

Dutifully, he obeyed, his heavy lids closing over the green orbs, and he once more drifted into a peaceful sleep.

She regarded him for a few more moments, before the pain in her calf began to flare up, and she writhed in her seat, seeking a more comfortable position. The pain died as suddenly as it had come upon her.

She exhaled deeply and looked out the window at the scene of New York in during an unbearably hot summer day as the train pulled out of the station, lost in her thoughts.

The last she had seen of Spot Conlon had been of his eyes meeting hers last night, wild and fearsome and alive—as all should be. She knew that he had lived, and he would flourish even more so. He would lead Brooklyn as her Fearless Leader in an even more glorious age now that Midtown was defeated. But that one day, he himself would grow too old be a newsboy any longer (what had he said to her at one time? _I, as a leader, am expendable. There will always be another to take my place_.) And indeed, he would in time choose another to take his place, and he would marry and would give the girl he chose his entire heart and soul and nothing less and would love her with as much an intense, impassioned love as he had held Brooklyn.

Her lips formed a thin line, and she pressed a palm to the glass pane of the window. Conlon had been the catalyst in all of this…in her finally reclaiming her birth name and identity. Yet, as with much ardor as she had with to be Helena Haddox, she realized that she was even more lost as she had been as the Angel of Death. As the Angel of Death, she had known exactly who she was…as Helena Haddox…she had no tangible idea who she was, or was supposed to be. She was even led more astray with her identity now then she had been.

But Flynn. Flynn loved her, hard and desperately. It was going to have to be him to be her pillar of strength in this foreign land—Chicago—so that she did not succumb to her old demons. She knew they would haunt her always, licking at her heels wherever she went, whispering sweet nothings into her ear for her to end her life…But she knew Flynn would not let that happen. It was going to take an impossibly strong will, and even a more impossibly strong love, to save her, and she prayed it could be done.

Her eyes never faltering from the window, her hand groped blindly at her side for Flynn's, and she opened his palm and placed her hand within his. She knew his eyes had never opened, but she felt his hand squeeze hers gently, reassuringly.

And Helena gazed out the window, at New York in the midst of the summer sun's impossibly breathless rays, at a New York that slowly faded as the train pushed onward to that brave, new world that was Chicago.

That day marked the last time that she ever laid eyes again on Spot Conlon or New York.

And a sudden sob came to her, which she stifled with her gloved hand. For whoever said all is fair in love and war, has never experienced love and war, for love and war are never fair.


	22. Author's Note

A/N: After seven years and one major rewrite, it is finally over. I never thought I would be able to finish this story when my computer crashed several years ago, taking half of the story with it, but I did, and it was because of all of those that continued to read and review and urged me to continue. I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart all those that have followed along with this story, and those new to it that always read and reviewed. I thank you all very much.

~~Butterfly Conlon


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